It also marked seven years since Bodi McKee was sentenced to prison for the killing, with Putt’s father sending him off with a chilling victim impact statement in which he hoped his son would haunt the convicted gunman’s dreams.
McKee, now 31 and having completed that sentence in full, was reminded of the homicide recently as he returned to a courtroom within a week of both grim anniversaries. .
He now has another life event to remember each September: returning to prison after being caught with a gun.
“It’s clear that a deterrent sentence is the most appropriate one to impose,” Judge Mina Wharepouri said during the Auckland District Court hearing, pointing out that the gun had been found loaded and easily accessible in the back of a vehicle.
“The firearm had also been cut down, which to my mind suggests that its use might have been contemplated in a future criminal act.”
He ordered a new sentence of two years and one month in prison, just past the two-years-or-less benchmark at which a judge can consider home detention.
What put McKee over the line was a four-month uplift imposed for his “previous convictions to do with firearms, one of which had you serving a lengthy sentence of imprisonment”, Judge Wharepouri said.
McKee’s last sentencing, in 2017, was for six years and three months in prison. It came months after a jury in the High Court at Auckland acquitted him of Putt’s murder but guilty of manslaughter.
McKee served every day of that sentence, his lawyer told Judge Wharepouri. But no other details of the case were discussed during the recent hearing.
Putt, 32, died at a Manurewa home — the site of an alleged commercial-scale drug dealing operation — on September 24, 2016, after McKee showed up at the house about 7am with a loaded gun and wearing a wig.
Family and friends grieve at the scene in Manurewa where Leslie Putt died in September 2016. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Witnesses at trial recounted hearing shouts of “drop the f***ing gun and fight like a man” — presumably from Putt — before the shooting.
“[McKee] did not leave, he did not fire a warning shot,” argued then-Crown prosecutor Yelena Yelavich, now a District Court judge. “The defendant had the gun targeted at Mr Putt and he struck his target.”
Defence lawyer Annabel Ives, who represented McKee at the murder trial and again last month, told jurors her client had been cornered and just wanted to leave.
“Get him away from me,” she said her client yelled before pulling the trigger, describing the victim as a “brawler” who was high on methamphetamine and overly aggressive.
“It was Leslie Putt that took a swing and made him flinch in that final second,” she said. “What other options did he actually have?”
Bodi McKee was acquitted of murder in the High Court at Auckland in 2017 but sentenced instead for manslaughter. Photo / Supplied
Justice Matthew Muir acknowledged during his subsequent sentencing for manslaughter there had been aspects of “excessive self-defence”. It was never revealed at trial what the two had been arguing about and the judge said he suspected “there is a back story to all of this that none of us know”.
McKee briefly wept during the sentencing as Putt’s grieving parents confronted him.
“I don’t believe he deserved to die, nor do I believe he deserved to die in such a brutal manner by being shot to death,” said Antony Marsh, describing his son as a bad person who had a good heart. “Bodi, you stole my son’s life, you have his blood on your hands.
“I hope when you dream you see his ghost.”
McKee was not allowed to respond to the statements but a letter he had written was read aloud.
“I am truly sorry for what I have done and the losses that all have to go through,” he wrote, adding he had grown significantly while in custody and wanted to eventually emerge from prison a better man able to “set a better example” for his then 3-year-old son.
Leslie Putt, 32, was shot dead in the driveway of a South Auckland home in September 2016. Gunman Bodi McKee was later convicted of manslaughter. Photo / Supplied
Afterwards, Justice Muir said McKee was at a “complete crossroads in his life” in which he could welcome rehabilitation while in prison or continue to commit crimes.
McKee again wrote a letter ahead of last month’s sentencing.
“You state in it you are not the reckless youngster you once were ... and are prepared to make positive changes in your life,” Judge Wharepouri noted, adding: “I sincerely hope that is the case”.
But the rehabilitation would have to be obtained in prison, he said.
Although the illegal firearm was the main offence for which McKee was sentenced, carrying a maximum punishment of five years in prison, he was also handed concurrent sentences for possession of ammunition, unlawfully getting into a motor vehicle, driving while disqualified, failing to stop for police and reckless driving.
McKee’s spree of re-offending began in March last year when a Nissan car went missing in central Auckland and was found abandoned six days later in Papakura. McKee’s DNA was found on the steering wheel.
Police went to arrest him six months later and searched his car in the process.
Armed police at the Winsford St address where Bodi McKee fatally shot Leslie Putt in September 2016. Photo / Brett Phibbs.
“Inside the motor vehicle police located a black duffel bag belonging to Mr McKee,” court documents state. “Inside the duffel bag, police located a sawn down .22 Ruger firearm and a total of 10 .22 rounds. The .22 Ruger was in the actioned state with a .22 round in the firearm chamber.”
On December 30 last year, McKee was spotted in another stolen vehicle. Although not charged with that theft, he was charged with attempting to evade police. He overtook multiple vehicles, using the wrong side of the road at one point and accelerating to an estimated 160km/h at another. He abandoned the vehicle in Flat Bush and ran into a house, but the police Eagle helicopter had been tracking him and he was again arrested a short time later.
McKee’s lawyer said his terrible childhood and his suspected ADHD helped explain his “difficulty getting back on track”. He was on the waiting list for psychiatric assistance in prison and now has the support of the Grace Foundation rehabilitation centre, despite having earlier absconded from the bail facility, she said.
Ives also pointed out her client had already served about 10-and-a-half months in jail awaiting trial and sentencing for the charges. But that should be weighed against the two months he spent on the run, Crown prosecutor Faisal Ganchi responded, adding the defendant showed no remorse and seemed to minimise his offending.
Judge Wharepouri agreed McKee’s childhood trauma had exposed him to “figures who have helped drive you towards a life of criminal activity”.
“This [childhood trauma] exposure was the byproduct of a number of men who revolved through your household who used violence and threats of violence to impose their will where your mother was concerned,” Judge Wharepouri said. “It is hardly surprising then that after being placed in state care, you should have moved closer to a number of anti-social figures, experimenting with drugs and developed a longstanding addiction to methamphetamine and cannabis.”
But, the judge added, “it is important to note that none of your offending appears to have been the result of your drug addiction”.
He then began at a 20-month sentence, then added four months for the ammunition charge, four more months for the other four charges, two months for offending while on bail and four months for his prior criminal offending with firearms. He then subtracted three months for his guilty pleas, one-and-a-half months for remorse and four-and-a-half months for his troubled childhood.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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