The anniversary of the slaying of Puketitiri farmer Jack Nicholas will be marked by family still concerned about the same issues of poaching which were the background to the tragedy which rocked Hawke's Bay and rural New Zealand 10 years ago.
Mr Nicholas was shot dead by a gunman who had waited for him to venture outside his Makahu farmhouse in the frosty dawn of August 27, 2004.
In a cruel twist of fate, wife Agnes heard the shots just before 6.30am but assumed it was her 71-year-old husband shooting at rabbits. The gunman escaped before she discovered the body near the gateway to their garden and alerted police, initially thinking it had been an accident with his own gun.
Police soon mounted a huge homicide inquiry but it was not until May 2006 that they made an arrest. However, after a six-week trial two years later, a jury deliberating for more than a day delivered a mid-evening verdict of not guilty, allowing then 51-year-old accused man Murray "Moe" Foreman to walk free.
While defence counsel and Wellington QC Bruce Squire immediately accused police of carrying out a "shoddy" and "selective" inquiry and nailing "the wrong man", police believed they had gathered enough evidence to convict, but the jury saw it differently.