Facing Up

A Terrible Man About To Face His Maker

Teresa Cormack's killer Jules Mikus dying from brain tumour in prison

Anna Leask NZ Herald 

The man who murdered Napier schoolgirl Teresa Cormack - avoiding arrest for more than 15 years - is dying from a brain tumour in prison.  The 6-year-old's body was found face down in a shallow grave at Whirinaki Beach near Napier eight days after she disappeared on June 19, 1987.

In October 2002 Jules Pierre Nicolas Mikus was sentenced to life in prison and preventive detention for the historic crime.  A jury also found him guilty of raping, sexually violating, and detaining Teresa against her will.  He denied the charges but after a trial in the High Court at Wellington Mikus was convicted and jailed for life.  . . . . The Herald can today reveal that Mikus has a terminal brain tumour.

He was sent to prison for the first time in 1977 after he indecently assaulted a girl under 16.  Mikus also has convictions for multiple burglaries, assault with intent to rape, fraud, bigamy, escaping custody and various other driving, drug and weapons offending.  Before his arrest for Teresa's murder, his last conviction was in 1997 when be breached periodic detention and was fined $150.

Human sin is a terrible phenomenon.  Here we see it displayed in a most terrible, horrific example. 

The old Puritan slogan is helpful when we consider such evils and those who perpetrate them: "there, but for the grace of God, go I."  Such evil people serve as a signpost to all men and women: if God does not save us we are lost indeed.  If He does not apply the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus to any soul, that person will undoubtedly follow in the steps of Mikus.

This, then, is our only hope:

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand . . .

When He shall come with trumpet sound
O may I then in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousness alone
Faultless to stand before the throne
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

May the Lord have mercy upon us!