Huri King-Mosen was murdered at his home in Wainuiomata in 2013. Photo / Facebook
Every year, on the anniversary of his victim’s death, murderer Joseph Rota thinks about what might have been.
“I think about a lot of things … I think about what life could have been like if I didn’t do what I did,” he told the Parole Board as he became eligible for early release for the first time since he was jailed in 2014.
Rota, then 24, strangled Huri King-Mosen in his own bedroom in 2013 after wrongly believing the Wellington hairdresser was romantically involved with his partner.
Rota was heavily addicted to then-legal synthetic cannabis and was what a judge would later describe as being in a “drug-induced rage” when he killed King-Mosen.
A decade later Rota told the board he was a changed man.
“The man I was back in 2013 isn’t the man that I am now,” he said today.
“I’ve been working on myself to better myself and move forward.”
Rota was asked if he ever thought about his victim.
“Every year as his anniversary comes up,” Rota said.
The board also asked how he thought King-Mosen’s whānau viewed him.
“They probably see me as a monster, maybe.”
Rota may have been eligible for early release from prison today, but the board heard he breached his release-to-work contract in recent years and made several unauthorised stops on his bicycle while outside prison.
As prisoners near the end of their sentences, they earn approval to undertake supervised work in the community, which Rota was trusted to perform.
However, three stops over several days at the same picnic spot, one for a total of eight minutes and another for 16 minutes, saw those privileges revoked.
Rota said his bike had got a flat tyre twice, in the same spot, two days in a row but the board chairman wasn’t convinced.
“That seems a remarkable coincidence doesn’t it?” Sir Ron Young said.
“You understand how unlikely that seems? It just sounds like an almost unbelievable coincidence.”
Rota said he understood why stopping would have been a concern for the prison but maintained he had suffered two punctures back to back and had reported those stops to prison staff immediately.
“I felt I took responsibility right from the start and explained why I stopped,” Rota told the board.
“It felt like I wasn’t heard.”
Rota’s counsel, Darien Mahoney, told the board that because of these stops and the subsequent removal of his release to work privileges, he wasn’t seeking early release.
Mahoney said if not for these incidents Rota had been hoping to be parole-ready but he was now instead focusing on regaining the trust he had lost.
Rota entered King-Mosen’s bedroom in Wainuiomata, Wellington, in October 2013 after becoming suspicious his partner had been unfaithful.
He began talking to King-Mosen but either misinterpreted something or took offence to the tone used, so hit his victim before strangling him with a cord.
At Rota’s sentencing, it was noted by Justice Simon France that the defendant was heavily addicted to synthetic cannabis at the time and had become increasingly paranoid and mistrustful of his friends and family.
The board declined Rota an early release from prison but urged him to keep doing the work he was doing on the inside.
He will next be seen by the board in September next year.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.
The 36-year-old died on December 19.