Independent journalist Penny Marie is acknowledging the coroner’s finding that Highlanders and Māori All Blacks player Connor Garden‑Bachop died of natural causes, while renewing focus on the late Shane Christie’s call for transparency around sudden deaths in New Zealand rugby.
The coroner has ruled that 25‑year‑old Garden‑Bachop died in his sleep from a sudden cardiac event associated with a mildly dilated heart, with no evidence of drugs, alcohol, or suspicious circumstances. This closes the official investigation but leaves ongoing concern among players and families about a series of sudden deaths involving young, fit professionals, including Garden‑Bachop and former Chiefs and Māori All Blacks back Sean Wainui, who died in a car crash in 2021.
Before his own death in 2025, former Māori All Black Shane Christie spoke with Marie about what he saw as an emerging pattern of unexplained or poorly explained sudden deaths in rugby, and the need for coronial and medical processes to fully explore all potential contributing factors. In that conversation, Christie referenced both Wainui’s and Garden‑Bachop’s deaths as examples of why families and teammates deserve clear answers and honest public discussion.
“[Yesterday’s] ruling brings some formal closure for Connor’s whānau, and that needs to be respected,” says Marie. “At the same time, Shane’s plea was that we do not shut down questions about why young players are dying suddenly, or gloss over possible links that families want fully examined.”
Marie emphasises that Christie, who was vaccinated himself, was not campaigning against vaccination but against silence and stigma around difficult questions, whether about concussion, chronic brain injury, or sudden deaths. “His message was for unity, curiosity and accountability, not division,” she says.
Penny Marie’s earlier interview with Shane Christie, Shane Christie Speaks Out On Sudden Deaths And Concussion Advocacy remains available online and provides important context to the coronial finding.
The people who are guilty of mass murder by injection – directly or indirectly – are still in positions of power in institutions which are so corrupt they are no longer meaningful in any of the terms by which they describe themselves. Everything has become inverted.
These same people exempted themselves from the injection because they knew what it was.
An exemption list would be useful information.
But until the day I see Ardern standing in the dock facing charges from an honest prosecutor (if such an animal can ever be found) is the day I will believe something is being done.
Amen. How we all wish somebody in the Govt would arise with some backbone, and address this whole matter honestly.
Penny Marie, shame on you for thinking and saying this matter was finished correctly.
THE COVID VACCINES KILLED AND MAIMED MANY INNOCENT NEW ZEALANDERS. END OF STORY.
Couldn’t agree more with you sentiments. The corruption of the politicians, Judges, cops, medical authoriies and of course the media knows no bounds. Will we ever see justice passed upon these scum?
Maybe, maybe not in this life but they sure will face justice in the next life.
Tripple Amen to that!
Agreed. There will be no understanding the situation until the exemption list is made public.
What else are they going to say?
That Covid was a massive deception and fraud nothing to do with health?
Which has been elucidated and proven to those Who have eyes to see
Safe proven effective
Stop blowing smoke up My rear end
Amen.
And all sitting MPs cowered from the Wgtn protestors.
Penny Marie, you’re way off line with this.
AND LOOK WHO WAS INVOLVED IN THE BACKGROUND 🤔https://books.brightlearn.ai/Shadow-Syndicate-Gates-Epstein-and-the-Elite-Network-bc5c98c94-en/index.html
…..and the cover-up goes on.
People should contemplate the fact that the guy most responsible for this disaster, one William Henry Gates III, was just outed trying to obtain an antibiotic to slip surreptiously to his wife whom he had infected with a venereal disease he contracted from a Hooker.
Now I have no difficulty believing that such a fellow would have no qualms about marketing an unproven and dangerous injection in order to add a billion or two to the billions already gained from shonky, stolen software.
Penny Marie is a prime example of her mouth writing cheques that her **** can’t cash. Shane Christie died in agony over the stonewalling around young sports people dying ‘unexpectedly’. Crickets.