On May 26th, 1993, seventeen-year-old Jayne (sometimes spelled Jane) Furlong vanished from the bustling Karangahape Road (commonly known as K’ Road) in Auckland, New Zealand, a central city strip notorious in the early 1990s for street-based sex work. Her disappearance sparked immediate concern, but it would take nearly nineteen years for her fate to be confirmed, and her killer has never been brought to justice.
Jayne Maree Furlong was born on September 23rd, 1975 in Auckland. At the time of her disappearance, she was a young mother who had recently given birth and was working part-time as a sex worker on K’ Road to support herself. She was known to frequent the area around Rendells department store, where she would solicit clients.
The last official sighting of Jayne occurred around eight thirty p.m. on May 26th, 1993 outside Rendells on Karangahape Road. Her then-partner, Danny Norsworthy, reported her missing two days later on May 28th after she failed to return home.
Later evidence, though, pointed to a more dramatic final sighting. Police now believe Jayne was seen running in fear later that night and entering the Adam and Eve massage parlor, located a little over a quarter of a mile farther along K’ Road toward the Ponsonby end. This suggested she may have been fleeing from someone or something immediately before her abduction.
Jayne was due to testify as a prosecution witness in two separate court cases around that time: one involving gang members accused of assault, and another concerning a businessman charged with violent attacks on sex workers. This raised early speculation about possible motives tied to silencing her.
For almost two decades, Jayne’s case remained a missing persons investigation with little progress. Then, on May 19th, 2012—almost nineteen years to the day since her last sighting—her skeletal remains were discovered by chance at Sunset Beach in Port Waikato, a remote seaside settlement southwest of Auckland. Erosion had exposed a shallow grave in the sand dunes near the surf club area.
DNA testing positively identified the remains as Jayne’s. The discovery confirmed she had been abducted and murdered, with police concluding homicide as the cause of death. Investigators noted that the burial site indicated her killer likely had some personal connection to the Port Waikato area, possibly through family, property, holidays, or other ties to the small coastal community.
The find triggered Operation Darlia, the third major police investigation into the case. It renewed public appeals, including through New Zealand Police’s cold case unit, which continues to seek information.
Over the years, police have pursued multiple leads and persons of interest, but no charges have ever been laid. Some former associates, including people linked to the court cases Jayne was scheduled to testify in, reportedly declined to speak with investigators after the remains were found.
In 2019, police publicly named a “person of interest” in the long-running inquiry, though details remained limited. Other leads, including claims of overheard confessions in the early 2000s, were assessed but discounted due to inconsistencies (such as incorrect details about the burial location).
Tragically, key witnesses have since passed away, including Danny Norsworthy (Jayne’s boyfriend at the time), whose death in the early 2020s was seen as a setback to the stagnant investigation.
Police maintain that Jayne likely knew her killer, given the targeted nature of the abduction and the specific choice of burial site far from central Auckland.
Jayne Furlong’s case has been covered in books (including Kelly Dennett’s The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Jane Furlong), podcasts, television segments (such as TVNZ’s Cold Case), and media retrospectives. As of the latest public updates, the investigation remains open and active within New Zealand Police’s cold case files.
Crime Immemorial 