A factory hand has admitted to murder after fatally assaulting a 69-year-old man at the victim's South Auckland home.
"Guilty, Your Honour," Tupufia Fualau, 59, said through a Samoan interpreter as he stood in the dock in the High Court at Auckland this morning.
Emergency services were called to victim Lealofi Paniani's Māngere East home early in the morning on October 24, 2021. They found him critically injured from what appeared to be an assault, police previously said.
The man died at Middlemore Hospital that night.
Police arrested Fualau the following day on a charge of wounding with intent, indicating that further charges might be laid in the future. The charge was upgraded to murder a month later.
