Zakariye Hussein appeared in the Christchurch High Court for sentencing for the murder of Laisa Tunidau Waka. Video / Supplied
The murder of a woman by a stranger on leave from a secure mental health unit will be the subject of a coronial inquiry.
Zakariye Hussein, 37, pleaded guilty in September to killing Laisa Waka Tunidau as she walked home from work on June 25.
Hussein was an inpatient at Hillmorton Hospital in Christchurch and had 10 years earlier been jailed for a stabbing rampage, nearly killing a man.
There are two reviews following the murder - one into Hussein’s care, the other into the secure unit at Hillmorton.
On Tuesday, Coroner Alexandra Cunninghame said in minute released to the Herald that she had earlier postponed opening an inquiry in order to allow for the criminal process to proceed.
A member of the public photographed Zakariye Hussein during his frightening knife rampage across Christchurch in 2012.
“At the time of Mrs Waka’s murder, Mr Hussein was an inpatient at Hillmorton Hospital. The circumstances in which he left the hospital on June 25, 2022, have been the subject of a review which was commissioned by Te Whatu Ora (the review).
“I have determined that it is now appropriate for me to open an inquiry into Mrs Waka’s death, and I hereby do so.”
Justice Cameron Mander sentenced Hussein to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 13 years in November.
Three psychiatric reports were prepared for the criminal proceedings.
They found he was capable of being involved in inflicting violence when not acutely unwell.
He held “intense grandiose and religious beliefs”.
From left Nemani Tunidau, Eparama Tunidau and Laisa Waka Tunidau.
He believed God was going to give him money so he could buy houses and marry staff.
The clinical staff he engaged with said he had endless discussions about these beliefs.
On the day of the killing, he was frustrated with hospital staff, in particular, because they removed staples from a newspaper supplement advertising real estate that he had been examining and circling properties he was going to purchase.
He then left to tell his family he would not be going back to the hospital, telling himself God had given him a “hell of a sad life”.
On his way, he stopped at a library to look at the property section of a newspaper.
He reported to a doctor he then checked his bank account and saw that God had not deposited the “millions and billions” to buy property.
He felt disappointed and believed God was “torturing” him.
He had thoughts of wanting to hurt someone with no person in mind.
According to the summary of facts Hussein was granted community leave from the hospital at about 2.30pm on June 25.
He then took a bus to Sockburn and started walking to his family home.
On the way, he became angry about some issues arising at the hospital. While walking, he saw a man mowing his lawns and decided to stab him. At his family’s house, he took a steak knife from the kitchen drawer and put it in his pocket.
But as he went outside, he thought it was too close to home and did not want his own family to witness anything.
As he walked down Cheyenne St, he saw a woman walking. He took out the knife and stabbed her repeatedly around her chest as she tried to protect herself.
As well as kidnapping a pie delivery driver at knifepoint – and then almost fatally stabbing a city council worker – in the March 2012 rampage across Christchurch, in 2018 he attacked a Hillmorton Hospital nurse and poured a hot cup of black coffee over their head.
