A Promise Kept: Inside Operation Cormack

Overview

A 2003 TVNZ documentary on the capture of the criminal responsible for one of New Zealand's most heinous crimes. On June 19, 1987, 6-year-old Teresa Maida Cormack pulled on an oversized red raincoat and left her home to walk the short distance to Richmond School. 8 days later her body was found in a shallow shingel grave on Whiraniki beach. Teresa Cormack had been sexually assualted and suffocated. 3 pubic hairs were found on Teresa as well as semen, but in 1987 DNA tests were just being introduced and the DNA taken from her wasn't enough to be tested as a means to identify her killer. In 1993 Detective Sergeant Brian Schaab was put in charge of the case that for over 6 years still remained a mystery - yet he did not give up. With DNA becoming a popular way of indentification, the pubic hairs were tested and a DNA profile of the killer was founded. The long list of suspects narrowed down as suspects were eliminated and one name remained - Jules Mikus.