Life and busy times of the woman who loved walking

Killer snuffed out the life of a mother who loved doing errands for neighbours. This picture is from a store security camera.

Video footage released by police of Mona Morriss showed an 83-year-old doing her shopping. But her family instantly knew their mother was doing someone else's shopping - probably a few errands for tenants of the Wellington Rd flats she had lived in for 18 years.

"Mum never drank milk. And that's what she's buying" said son Kevin Morriss, the only one of Mrs Morriss' nine children to still live in Marton.

He lives in Wellington Rd too, and it was in a different house in the same road that Mrs Morriss and her husband, Stu, raised their big family.

Though born in Palmerston North, Mrs Morriss had lived in Marton for 45 years. She had been on her own for 26 years since her husband died of prostate cancer.

"She never had anybody," Kevin said. "She kept herself busy. She travelled around the world and did a trip to Australia every year or so."

The brothers know a mother who was on the go all the time, who was the undisputed head of the family, who raised a happy bunch of kids and who walked whenever she could.

She would always walk the 1.5km to Kevin's home.

"I'd let her walk here but never back. A k and a half is enough. But she was stubborn. Sometimes she'd say 'just drop me off at the footpath'.

"But I'd take her to the door.

"And she'd just keep going.

"We'd drop her off and go back to town to get something and she'd be walking down to the supermarket."

Her walking is legendary in the small Rangitikei town.

"I was talking to a taxi driver the other day who said she [the taxi driver] used to bike round town with her son on the back. The son used to say, 'come on Mum, speed up because that little old lady is beating us walking'."

"She believed as long as she would walk she would live," Kevin said.

And though she travelled, she never had a driving licence.

"She didn't drive but she'd always sit in the back of the car, on the left-hand side so she could see the speed limit and tell when one of her children was driving too fast," Kevin said.

Brother Vernon: "Well, she didn't trust some members of the family. She always sat in front with you, Kevin".

There are more family members in Australia now than in New Zealand, with five children as well as grandchildren across the Tasman.

But Marton has remained home for the whole family, although Mrs Morriss' own parents started out on the other side of the ranges. They farmed at Rongokokako near Eketahuna, before moving to Palmerston North, where Mrs Morriss was born, and later heading back to the farm, which is still in the family.

Kevin, the third-oldest child, was brought up on the farm while Vernon and Allan were raised in Marton.

Their father worked at MSD Speirs, formerly Carters, as a contract stacker.

Mrs Morriss did not have an official job until she was in her late 40s. Leaving school at 13, she worked on the farm until she married.

Then her first and last job was at textile company Chenell as the tea lady. After her husband died and she had retired she travelled often, including to the United States twice to visit relatives. She toured Europe and made regular visits to Australia.

Allan Morriss said his mum was fiercely "Kiwi".

"It was funny, whenever one of her grandchildren had a boyfriend and it turned out to be a New Zealander, she was very pleased. If it was an Aussie it wasn't so good. She was a crack-up with that.

"So very loyal."

But she would chat to anyone.

"You slow down long enough - she'd get you," Vernon said.

The sons remember a family home where there was always plenty of food in the freezer and cupboards, a way of life their mother kept up until her death.

"She would pick three or four lemons at Kevin's and make a little pot of lemon honey. Or she would be given plums and make a tiny pot of jam."

Mrs Morriss watched little TV apart from animal programmes.

"And those she'd only watch for a while and then she'd be out here with me in the garden. She loved the garden. She'd be pulling up weeds or picking a bud off the top of something you don't want picked," Kevin said.

Vernon: "She'd come down here to Kevin's but wouldn't make him a cup of tea or coffee until he'd mowed the lawns."

She went to Kevin's every Saturday afternoon. "I'd be doing my housework and I'd know when she was feeling really well because she'd get the broom out and sweep the whole concrete driveway."

The generation that made its own butter was always busy, Kevin said.

"She never lost that knack of being able to make something out of nothing."

Her biggest hobby was handcrafts, including crocheting and knitting, which she could do all day. "That needle could really fly" Allan said.

Also in her daily routine in her last years was a visit to Ma and Pa's coffee lounge on Broadway where she changed her lifetime habit of drinking black tea and coffee by always having a cappuccino.

"They told us the other day she used to pick up her own cup and take it out and wash it," Kevin said. "She was the only customer allowed out the back."

- NZPA

The murder

* Mona Morriss was found dead in her Marton flat on January 5 with stab wounds.

* Her attacker had a sexual motive, police say.

* A criminal profiling unit is helping detectives investigating the death of the 83-year-old great-grandmother.

* People with information should call 0800 493-554.