Mother's dying plea for her baby

Police prepare to remove a body after a double murder in the Tauranga suburb of Greerton. Picture / Alan Gibson

A 33-year-old mother of four was heard pleading "What about my baby" just before she was found stabbed to death in her Tauranga home.

Teresa Kohu was one of two people killed in what police have called a domestic incident. Two others were seriously injured.

Neighbours in the Greerton street described hearing loud arguments at the house before police arrived on Sunday night.

Tracey Henderson heard a man yelling at a woman.

"He said, 'How can you do this to me? You know I love you'. And that was it, then silence. And then the dogs."

The last thing she heard the woman say was a plea for her baby.

"All I heard was 'What about my baby?'," Mrs Henderson said. Her husband Karl called police.

Ms Kohu was dead when police arrived at the Mansel Rd house about 10.30pm. Two men with stab wounds were also in the house.

Ten minutes later, a third seriously injured man - believed to be the dead woman's partner - was found in the garden of a neighbouring house. He died soon afterwards.

Police have refused to reveal details of the incident other than to say that one of the two injured, a 33-year-old Waikato man, has been charged with possession of a knife and is under police guard at Tauranga Hospital.

But Ms Kohu's aunt, Lyne Jack-Kino, yesterday confirmed the man was her niece's former boyfriend. The other injured man was Ms Kohu's brother-in-law, who was also living at the house with the dead woman and her baby.

"He [the former boyfriend] was quite a placid person, fairly calm. He loved her dearly. I think he was hoping for them to get back together.

"A lot of it, I think, was the fact that maybe she didn't want him back and he did want her back."

Ms Jack-Kino spoke to her niece's former boyfriend on Friday and asked him about the other children from the relationship.

"He said they were good."

She said he was a "real neat guy, a very placid, very humble man. He loved her so much".

The brother-in-law is believed to have been stabbed when he tried to intervene in the argument. Neighbours reported seeing him being wheeled into an ambulance.

The street remained cordoned off until the bodies were removed yesterday afternoon.

Ms Kohu's cousin, Taha Kohu, who lives a few doors away, tried to go to his cousin's house when he heard sirens but was prevented by police.

He was shocked by her death.

"She's a good, all-round person, kindhearted and caring," he said.

Members of the Tauranga CIB interviewed neighbours of Ms Kohu's former partner yesterday and searched his Waikato property.

The man had been living in a settlement near Kawhia for six months with two young children. Neighbours presumed he was a solo father.

Richelle Verstraten had shifted into a house across the paddock from the man on Saturday.

She saw him mowing his lawn at the weekend.

"He had a pitbull dog, or something similar."

She was stunned to hear he might be linked to a double murder.

"The previous owners said this was a nice neighbourhood."

Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, said if the man was at the centre of a violent killing it would be "way out of character".

He had been living with two children, aged about 5 and 3, she said.

"It seemed like he was a solo dad, I've never seen a mum. He was an every-day, nice family person. We were talking to him at the Santa parade on Saturday."

The man had been involved in the school's athletics day and had attended the school production a few weeks ago.

The family trio would often go for evening strolls down the road.

Tauranga police want to hear of sightings of a dark grey Nissan Terrano, registration WY7240, in Tauranga or between Tauranga and the Waikato on Sunday.