George Cecil Horry

{{short description|New Zealand murderer}}

{{Use New Zealand English|date=February 2020}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2017}}

George Cecil Horry (6 May 1907 – 29 April 1981) was a British-born New Zealand criminal.{{DNZB|title=George Cecil Horry|first= Brian W.|last= Stephenson|id=5h36|accessdate=23 April 2017}}

In 1951, he became the first person in more than 300 years to be convicted under English common law for the murder of a victim of whose body was never found.{{cite web|url=http://www.noted.co.nz/archive/listener-nz-2014/aint-got-no-body-nzs-history-making-murder-case/|title=Ain't got no body: NZ's history-making murder case|date=2014-12-11|publisher=New Zealand Listener|author=Redmer Yska|access-date=1 December 2017|archive-date=2 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171202052453/http://www.noted.co.nz/archive/listener-nz-2014/aint-got-no-body-nzs-history-making-murder-case/|url-status=dead}}

By 1951 when he was arrested he had accumulated 64 convictions (and been conscripted into the New Zealand Army in 1944). The jury accepted the circumstantial evidence and found him guilty; though the death penalty for murder had been restored it was not in force in 1942 so he was not hanged. Although one of the officers who interviewed Horry in 1943 had retired, his written record of the interview enabled him to recall the details.{{cite book |last= Department of Justice |title= Crime in New Zealand: A Survey of New Zealand Criminal Behaviour |orig-year= 1968 |year= 1974 |publisher= A R Shearer Government Printer |location= Wellington |page= 36 }}

Horry was released from prison in 1967, and died in Auckland as "George Taylor" (having changed his name by deed poll) in 1981, leaving a wife and child.{{DNZB|title=George Cecil Horry|first= Brian W.|last= Stephenson|id=5h36|accessdate=23 April 2017}}