Stolen

11.50am April 13, 2002.  A sunny, Saturday morning in a sleepy suburb of Wellington, New Zealand.  A woman takes her eight month old daughter and her nieces for their regular walk, down the road to the park.

One family's normal day is about to become an unimaginable nightmare, as a balaclava-wearing, gun-wielding stranger leaps from a car and steals the baby.

No missing persons case in recent New Zealand history gripped the nation more than the kidnapping of baby Kahu Durie.  The adopted daughter of Maori High Court Judge, Justice Eddie Durie, and prominent lawyer, Donna Hall, Baby Kahu is snatched at gunpoint, sparking a massive police manhunt.

The nine days that follow are a gut-wrenching, agonizing time for the family, and for the New Zealand public, as they watch, gripped by brave television appeals for the baby's safe return.

Meanwhile, kidnapper Terence Traynor is ruthlessly carrying out what he believes is the perfect crime, a crime five years in the planning.  Following Donna Hall's emotional public plea, a letter arrives containing polaroids of the baby, and a ransom demand for three million dollars, the biggest in New Zealand history.

Out of the public eye, the police, led by Detective Inspector Stuart Wildon, work tirelessly, carrying out reconstructions of the crime and following up every possible lead, including hoax calls that claim the baby is dead.  Slowly, but surely, the net closes, eventually focusing on a secluded house in a small country town.

As Donna and Eddie, their extended family - and the New Zealand public wait and hope, Wildon and his team know that one wrong step could have devastating consequences.

Stolen was made with funding from NZ On Air's Platinum Fund.