Nearly 500 patients consigned to the Tokanui psychiatric hospital died there, their only legacy a memorial wall in a field
It was, remembers Caroline Arrell, just another paddock. Grazed by sheep under the wide Waikato sky, it gave no hint of its past – except perhaps that her labrador, Lucy, had an odd aversion to it. The dog would veer away from it, skirting the fence line.
But out riding her horse, Alice, on a quiet Sunday in early 1991, Arrell was about to discover a grave on the 200-hectare farm she called home. Beneath the feet of the sheep, under the grass and soil, nearly 500 people lay buried.
