The Kiwi Skinhead Who Murdered the Korean Backpacker

There can be little doubt that Hayden Brent McKenzie (31) is a sick man with a troubled past. For those who are unaware, McKenzie was sentenced the other day to life in prison for his role in the 2003 murder of Korean backpacker, Kim Jae-Hyeon.

According to the article: Kim was in New Zealand studying and trying to improve his English. By unfortunate chance he encountered McKenzie and at least two other members of an ultra violent Neo Nazi group who strangled Kim and then hid his body so well that it wasn’t discovered until October this year.

Kim’s mother and brother attended the sentencing and the grief-stricken mother cried out: “You heartless and cruel man, why did you kill such a precious life? You unforgivable man, why did you kill an innocent man, a student with no money?” McKenzie ignored her and seemed unconcerned.

Apparently Kim was killed because he was Asian, which inflamed McKenzie’s “abhorrent” white supremacist neo-Nazi “hatreds.” But this was not McKenzie’s first murder, and in fact, everything about McKenzie, who once had “Die Nigger, Die” tattooed on his forehead, is proof that fact is often much stranger than fiction. Be warned — this is some strange stuff.

The First Murder

It was in 1999 that McKenzie took part in his first murder. According to a lengthy article, McKenzie’s first victim was James Bambrough (54), a homeless gay man who preferred to be called Janis and frequented the bars where he was looked upon as a harmless but pesky drunk.

Even as a youth Bambrough was different. His sister described him as “the loveliest kid you could ever meet” but noted that it was his smooth complexion and soft hair that set him apart from the other boys at school. There were rumors that he was a hermaphrodite, but his sister denies the rumors as “complete nonsense” — the only physical deformity that James had were his enlarged testicles at birth. She did, however, admit that “he was very effeminate, but as far as I knew, he was a fully functioning male — [a male] anatomically with a female-wired mind.”

Bambrough was even offered a sex-change but his mother refused probably out of concern for the financial costs. In his mid-teens Bambrough became a female impersonator in a nightclub in Auckland. For several years he made his living as an entertainer but eventually returned to the South Island with his two dogs. He managed to survive on what he could scrape together and was always willing to share.

But he had a fondness for alcohol and often got plastered in the local bars and, depending on the mood of the customer, was either a funny drunk or a bothersome pervert.

“Janis could be touchy-feely at parties and not only with people who knew him. “How are you, gorgeous?” he’d say. The bloke on the end of the inquiry would invariably growl or crack up laughing, trying not to slop his ale.

“At a Westport gathering in October, 1999, Bambrough produced one of his familiar, drunken displays.”

He cuddled a man, flirted with another and made indiscreet comments about a girl’s breasts. The man he hugged, in thanks for a favour, was Fourth Reicher Leighton Wilding. The girl’s brother was a gang wannabe, hot-headed Hayden McKenzie. This time Bambrough did not get a chuckle or a chiding. This time he pissed off the wrong crowd.”

They ended up luring Bambrough away from the party into a secluded area where they strangled and then buried him. Bambrough’s body was not be found until September 2004 when McKenzie squealed on his partners in crime. He was given a ten-year prison sentence.

Threatening to kill a dog lover

Apparently he was a heavy drinker and in December 2001, 24-year-old McKenzie was sentenced to a five-week drug and alcohol dependency program. McKenzie’s girlfriend, a dog lover and a fellow skinhead, maintained regular contact with McKenzie through the mail while he was part of this program. Apparently it was the contents of the 19 letters that she wrote and her subsequent caught-in-the-act cheating that provided the stimulus for McKenzie’s next violent encounter.

Can you guess who she was cheating with?

It appears that police were summoned to the home that McKenzie shared with his girlfriend after he dragged a dog out of their house and threatened to shoot it. His girlfriend tried to intervene but McKenzie threatened to shoot her too and so she fled. The reason, you ask?

In the letters she wrote to McKenzie, she expressed the desire to shoot or stab someone and also to engage in sexual activity with at least one of the dogs. McKenzie apparently didn’t believe it until he actually caught her in the act. A newspaper account described the incident as: “Enraged by finding his partner in a sexual act with a dog, a Westport man grabbed a sawn-off shotgun and tried to drag the animal outside to shoot it.”

McKenzie was given 12 months in jail after admitting charges of threatening to kill, unlawfully possessing a weapon, and intentional damage. Wonder how this story went down with the rest of his skinhead friends? You can read the rest of the article here.