Molenaar's partner opts to stay in Napier

Delwyn Keefe, seen waving from the hearse during Jan Molenaar's funeral procession, plans to move back into their Chaucer Rd home. Photo / Herald on Sunday

The partner of killer gunman Jan Molenaar plans to move back into the bullet-riddled home they shared in Napier.

Molenaar was buried on Friday. Police say he died by his own hand after a 28-hour stand-off last weekend that began when he fatally shot one police officer and injured two others and a civilian.

The siege continued another 23 hours while police tried to get past his booby traps to determine whether he was alive or dead.

At the centre of the tragic exchange was Delwyn Keefe, 43, Molenaar's partner of 11 years, who has told his family that she will return to the Chaucer Rd house as soon as police allow her back.

She even wanted to hold Molenaar's funeral at the house, but the police scene examination made it impossible.

Molenaar's stepfather Paul said Keefe was "very brave". "She said Jan would have wanted her to go back - he'd made everything in the house just the way she wanted it."

Paul Molenaar said the 51-year-old gunman, whom he had raised like a son, had a little temper, but often Keefe could calm him down.

"He would blow up, lose his cool. I saw him once when he lost it and Delwyn calmed him right down. He was usually a calm person and was a good negotiator."

But not this time. According to police, Molenaar returned to his house after walking his dog to find Keefe making cups of coffee for the three police officers, who had executed a search warrant for cannabis.

The pyjama-clad Keefe had shown them two cannabis plants in the spare room, and eight to 10 one-ounce bags of cannabis in the garage.

But Molenaar, furious at discovering the police in his home, fetched a gun and pointed it at the police.

As they walked away in a bid to calm him, he shot them in the back and buttocks.

Senior Constable Len Snee died, his colleagues Grant Diver and Bruce Miller are still in hospital.

Leonard Holmwood, a friend and neighbour of Molenaar, who came over to calm the confrontation, was also shot as he tried to wrestle the gun from Molenaar.

Keefe argued heatedly with him outside the house after he fired the first shots, trying to get him to put the gun down.

Margaret Kilmartin, who lives above Molenaar's property on Hospital Hill, said: "They were in each other's faces, they were screaming, hands in the air. He would be right up in her face and she would be in his. It wasn't just a tiff."

Keefe fled as Kilmartin called 111. Soon after, armed police ran through her yard and positioned themselves along her back fence. Molenaar began shooting across the bottom of her property, Kilmartin said.

"They were positioned to shoot. They were there watching my boundary all the time. I just kept waiting, pacing and staring out of the window. It was pretty scary. Then an officer pointed at me to get inside. They told me to close my curtains or I wouldn't be able to move around."

She said the situation became more terrifying when the police started communicating with Molenaar on a loud hailer.

"They were using his name every time they talked to him, calling him Jan. They said, 'your house is surrounded and you're under arrest, give yourself up'.

"They told him they were not going anywhere, to think of his family members and to talk to them and tell them what he wanted, what he needed."

Keefe spent most of the siege with police, listening in to their phone conversations with her partner, and trying to persuade her partner to stop shooting and come out of the house.

"She listened in on everything. She was talking to him. She was trying to get him to give himself up.

"She said he mellowed a bit towards the end but it was too late," said Paul Molenaar. "They offered him food because he had none in the house.

"The police said he could have anything he wanted and they would bring it to him. At one point I think he was going to have a cheeseburger but he didn't end up having it."

When Keefe next saw him, he was dead. His body was released to the family on Wednesday for his tangi. Molenaar's mother, Anna, dressed him for his funeral.

"He had one bullet wound to his head, no other wounds," said his brother Pieter. "He had a few cuts and scratches on his knuckles. A guy came and managed to reconstruct his face - they put makeup on him to cover it."

Now, with the funeral behind her, Keefe is determined to return to 51 Chaucer Rd with Molenaar's dog, Luger.

But her estranged father John questioned whether she could live in Napier again. "If I could talk to her, I would tell her to get out of Napier. Don't stay around there," he said.

"She's got a hard time ahead."