Christopher John Lewis

Christopher John Lewis (7 September 1964 – 23 September 1997) was a New Zealand criminal who made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II in 1981. He planned future attempts at assassinating other British royal family members but was kept away from them by the authorities in New Zealand.

In 1997, Lewis was charged with the murder of Tania Furlan and the kidnapping of her daughter. He killed himself in custody before he could be brought to trial.

Early life Lewis was born in Dunedin on 7 September 1964. He had a troubled life; his father was a cruel disciplinarian, and he was expelled from school after assaulting another child. He struggled at school and was unable to write or read until the age of eight. As a boy, he idolised Charles Manson. In his teens, he formed a would-be guerrilla army (the National Imperial Gurelia Army) with two friends. The group stole weapons, sent a threatening letter to the police, and robbed a post office of NZ$5,244.

While Lewis did not have a proper vantage point nor a sufficiently powerful rifle for his purposes, a 1997 report by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service notes that his intent was to kill the Queen. Eight days after firing the shot, Lewis was arrested and charged with public possession of a firearm, and public discharging of a firearm. As the charges were read to him, Lewis responded, "Only two charges, what? Shit ... Had the bullet hit her, would it be treason?" Lewis served three years in prison, with the last part in a psychiatric prison. The facts of the attempt were classified, until released in February 2018 in response to a request from Fairfax Media. He was later charged with the 1997 murder of a young mother, Tania Furlan, who was bludgeoned to death with a hammer, and the kidnapping of her child. He electrocuted himself in Mount Eden Prison, Auckland, while awaiting trial. A friend of Lewis, Travis Burns, later received a reward for implicating him in Furlan's murder.