Fatal cocktail - Three teens in a stolen car

Karen McGregor-Dawson

When Diane Wedding woke for the second time last Tuesday, she did not realise that the silver Mercedes C200 was gone.

It had been there when her partner left at 4am, but by the time she went outside around 10, it had disappeared.

The couple live in Houhora, a village halfway between Kaitaia and Cape Reinga. The two main streets are Salvation and Cemetery Rds.

Wedding called the police, who would tell her later that the car the couple bought only a year ago had been seen by a tour bus driver at 8am.

By the time the Mercedes approached Warkworth it had travelled around 300km and had four occupants.

In the front was the unnamed 16-year-old driver, now in custody on a holding charge of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.

Beside him was Hemi Noble, 17, and directly behind him, Hone Yates, both from Kaitaia.

Fourteen-year-old Yates, with his bright blue eyes, fair hair and golden skin, had already suffered a tragedy. His mother died when he was 5 and he was raised mainly by his grandparents, Wilma and John Yates.

John, a New Zealand league rep, died of Alzheimer's two years ago.

Then there was Fred Murphy, the 34-year-old hairdresser, an innocent hitch-hiker on his way to Auckland to make cash to buy his daughter a birthday present.

What exactly the boys from the Far North were doing so early in Houhora that morning hasn't been explained. All there is to go on are the circumstances as known, which suggest they were up to no good.

They were in a stolen car of the type normally owned by the well-heeled and they were headed south.

Boys so young in charge of such a car was unusual enough for people to notice, and police received calls from some members of the public who reported it.

It is likely the boys applied their local knowledge and turned left when they arrived at Awanui and headed south down highway 10, the flatter route near the east coast.

They apparently stopped near Kerikeri for the hitch-hiking Murphy before continuing south, by now on highway 1, past Kawakawa, through Whangarei, over the Brynderwyns, by which time the police may have been alerted to the car's progress.

It was mid-afternoon. Pete Fenlon was mowing the lawn around the blossom trees in front of their immaculate B&B two minutes north of Warkworth, while his wife Annie was inside getting the house ready for guests.

"I heard the roar when he put his foot down," she said. "That horrible noise you hear when a car is really hooning." They both heard the series of bangs "so loud you knew it was devastation. It just incredibly seemed to go on so long".

The first Pete saw was the Merc flashing through the air so high he thought it was going to hit the power lines, then slamming down on its side at their front gate.

"I ran down my drive and the cop car was pulling in."

Within minutes, even before Annie had dialled 111, the police helicopter was landing on her lawn.

"The services were amazing. You've never seen anything so fast."

Meanwhile, the Rav4 hit in the smash was dribbling petrol, the motor trying to cough into action and burst into flames. Says Annie: "I don't know how she could have survived. It was crushed."

While Pete ran up the road to stop traffic, Annie and neighbour Kath McDermott looked after the walking survivors - and watched the police take photos of "all the stolen stuff out of the Mercedes' boot".

Three days later Fred Murphy and Hemi Noble are in coffins, the driver in jail and Hone Yates probably still in Starship Hospital. Serious charges, possibly manslaughter, are expected.

Two dead, two maimed because of a series of illegal acts. Detectives are investigating what is described as "items of interest" in the wreck of the Mercedes, trying to establish whether they were stolen and, if so, what burglaries they relate to.

Back at the Fenlons' B&B only fragments of glass and plastic, a gouge in the ditch where the Merc hit and a series of white marks on the road, showing where the various cars, people, airbags and goods landed, remain. Annie has spent most of the day cleaning up.

Meanwhile, in Ward 77 at Auckland Hospital, Karen McGregor-Dawson, the innocent victim who insists Jesus was beside her, slowly recovers. Her left femur is so badly broken it needs a rod to hold it together, her right knee gashed, wrist and collar bone broken, eye blackened.

It's been a tough few months for Karen. For the past two years she's been battling the mysterious blood condition neutropenia, which makes her susceptible to bacterial infections.

As her mother Janice says, her blood levels have improved. "Maybe the trauma helped."

She also has her faith. Her family, work and church friends have visited in droves. Her cubicle overflows with tulips, stocks, roses, cards.

One reads, "Dear Karen, I'm so glad Jesus saved your life."

- Additional reporting Phil Taylor