On Oct. 14, 1976, Deborah Gardner, a beautiful, young American Peace Corps volunteer from Tacoma, Wash., was murdered while on assignment in the South Pacific island nation of Tonga.
Dennis Priven, a 24-year-old fellow Peace Corps worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., who friends say was obsessed with Gardner, was charged with her murder by Tongan police.
Deborah Gardner was 23 and a teacher. She lived in a one-room hut in a village at the edge of the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa. She had been there nearly ten and a half months when she died in October 1976. The older volunteer charged with her murder faced possible hanging. The American government went to considerable lengths to defend him. A lawyer came from New Zealand and a psychiatrist from Hawaii. It was the longest trial in Tongan memory.
Dennis Priven, a 24-year-old fellow Peace Corps worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., who friends say was obsessed with Gardner, was charged with her murder by Tongan police.
Deborah Gardner was 23 and a teacher. She lived in a one-room hut in a village at the edge of the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa. She had been there nearly ten and a half months when she died in October 1976. The older volunteer charged with her murder faced possible hanging. The American government went to considerable lengths to defend him. A lawyer came from New Zealand and a psychiatrist from Hawaii. It was the longest trial in Tongan memory.
On Oct. 14, 1976, Deborah Gardner, a beautiful, young American Peace Corps volunteer from Tacoma, Wash., was murdered while on assignment in the South Pacific island nation of Tonga.
Dennis Priven, a 24-year-old fellow Peace Corps worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., who friends say was obsessed with Gardner, was charged with her murder by Tongan police.
Deborah Gardner was 23 and a teacher. She lived in a one-room hut in a village at the edge of the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa. She had been there nearly ten and a half months when she died in October 1976. The older volunteer charged with her murder faced possible hanging. The American government went to considerable lengths to defend him. A lawyer came from New Zealand and a psychiatrist from Hawaii. It was the longest trial in Tongan memory.
Dennis Priven, a 24-year-old fellow Peace Corps worker from Brooklyn, N.Y., who friends say was obsessed with Gardner, was charged with her murder by Tongan police.
Deborah Gardner was 23 and a teacher. She lived in a one-room hut in a village at the edge of the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa. She had been there nearly ten and a half months when she died in October 1976. The older volunteer charged with her murder faced possible hanging. The American government went to considerable lengths to defend him. A lawyer came from New Zealand and a psychiatrist from Hawaii. It was the longest trial in Tongan memory.
