Ex-con's sex-linked kidnapping in Auckland echoes his similar crime in US

When ex-con Robert Mark Purchase shared with a journalist last year a hard-luck story about how he had applied for nearly 8000 jobs but felt constantly stymied by a 1997 prison stint as a young adult, the Aucklander touted himself as both “honest” and “honourable” nowadays. 

Stuff later had to amend its articles after it was realised Purchase had left out a crucial detail: He had spent much of the past two decades in a United States prison after carjacking and kidnapping a woman who said she was bound, gagged and sexually assaulted multiple times as she was driven more than 1700km away from the carpark where she was snatched. 

It can now be revealed that Purchase potentially faces another lengthy prison stretch – this time in New Zealand – after having recently committed eerily similar offending in which he pretended to be an Uber driver. 

The defendant, 49, appeared yesterday in the High Court at Auckland, where he shook his head repeatedly but pleaded guilty to abduction for purposes of sexual connection, injuring with intent to injure and strangulation. 

The kidnapping charge usually carries a maximum possible sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment, but prosecutors have indicated they will be seeking a rare sentence of preventive detention – an indefinite term designed to protect the public from the nation’s most dangerous offenders. 

His latest crimes were brought to the attention of police in March – five months to the day after his misleading account of his past was first published – when a distressed woman flagged down a motorist in a remote bush area in coastal West Auckland. 

The night before, she had been visiting bars and restaurants on Auckland Central’s Karangahape Rd with friends. At 11.52pm, a friend ordered an Uber but the driver cancelled the request a short time later, court documents state. 

Purchase, who is not an Uber driver, had been driving up and down K Rd that night in his white Toyota Vitz. 

The two friends, unaware that their ride had been cancelled, walked up to Purchase’s car when he pulled over next to where they were standing. When they asked if he was their Uber, he didn’t bother to correct them and drove the first woman to her home in Mt Wellington. 

“Thereafter, and once he had her alone, Mr Purchase took [the second woman] away without her consent, and with the intention of having sexual connection with her,” the agreed summary of facts states. 

He drove her in the opposite direction of her home. 

Auckland resident Robert Mark Purchase has been charged with abduction for purposes of sexual connection, injuring with intent to injure and strangulation. 

The woman told police her memory of what happened next was fragmentary, but she recalled the driver pulling over and assaulting her out of anger after she vomited in the car. 

“[Her] next memory is of running away from Mr Purchase, who managed to catch her and pin her to the ground,” documents state. “Mr Purchase then continued to assault her, including punching and strangling her. 

“[The victim’s] next memory is of being in a grassy area at Pine Avenue, Titirangi.” 

It was still nighttime, and the victim had torn underwear, missing shoes and cable tied around her wrists, which she managed to wriggle out of. She had severe bruising and swelling to her face and neck and couldn’t see properly through one eye. Disoriented, she decided to hide in the bush until daylight, then asked a passing motorist for help. 

Purchase’s DNA was later discovered on the inside of the woman’s undergarments and on the cable ties found at the scene. 

When spoken to by police, Purchase denied strangling or sexually assaulting the woman, but he claimed to have beaten her and tied her up because of her own bad behaviour. He said he thought he had dropped off both women when he realised the victim was passed out in the back seat. 

He said the woman gave him directions to the remote dirt road. He then tried to kick her out after she vomited and refused to clean it up or pay for it, he claimed, but she resisted by scratching and stabbing him with her nails. 

Auckland resident Robert Mark Purchase has been charged with abduction for purposes of sexual connection, injuring with intent to injure and strangulation. 

“He then hit her on the back of her head, and slapped her across the face,” he told police, according to the agreed facts. “He [said he] then placed a cable tie on each of her hands to stop her from fighting.” 

But if it was all a misunderstanding, then it was remarkably similar to another case that landed him a long stretch in an American prison in the early 2000s. 

US court documents show Purchase was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment in 2003 after pleading no contest in Florida to armed kidnapping and carjacking with a deadly weapon. He had also initially been charged with committing sexual battery with great force. 

Purchase, then 25, and co-defendant Seth Straws, 21, were arrested after they ran into bad weather while driving along a Florida motorway and crashed the victim’s car, according to media accounts at the time. 

Auckland resident Robert Mark Purchase spent two decades in a US prison after kidnapping a woman who said she was repeatedly sexually assaulted. He's now been charged in New Zealand with abduction for purposes of sexual connection, injuring with intent to injure and strangulation involving another woman. Photo / WTHR 

When paramedics arrived on the scene, the 21-year-old woman told them she had been abducted in Indianapolis – a nearly 16-hour drive that would have taken them across at least four state lines. 

Purchase admitted to police that he had sexually assaulted the woman several times during the journey, according to media reports. 

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” Purchase allegedly responded when asked by police why he did it, Indianapolis TV station WTHR reported in 2002. 

Purchase was returned to New Zealand in 2023 after his parole release. 

In his subsequent interviews with Stuff – for which he posed for photos and insinuated he had not committed another crime since 1997 – Purchase showed the reporter a copy of his otherwise clean New Zealand criminal record, the media organisation reported last year. He suggested that New Zealand was especially judgmental of his past, noting that he had been able to find jobs while living in the US. 

Auckland resident Robert Mark Purchase's LinkedIn profile photo. He has been charged with abduction for purposes of sexual connection, injuring with intent to injure and strangulation. 

But he didn’t mention in the initial story, or in two feel-good follow-up stories, that some of those jobs were prison assignments, Stuff noted in a fourth article acknowledging Purchase’s misleading statements. 

After yesterday’s guilty pleas, Justice Mathew Downs set a sentencing date for February next year. He ordered Purchase to remain in jail until then. 

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand. 

SEXUAL HARM 

Where to get help:
If it's an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
If you've ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone, contact Safe to Talk confidentially, any time 24/7:
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• Text 4334
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Alternatively contact your local police station - click here for a list.
If you have been sexually assaulted, remember it's not your fault.