Sisters 'tried to smother dying woman'

Gordon Graham

An inquest has heard allegations that two sisters of a 52-year-old cancer sufferer tried to smother her with a pillow during her final hours.

Other claims involve the alleged drugging of the Napier woman's husband, threats of body snatching, chanting in tongues, and theft.

At an inquest before Napier coroner Warwick Holmes on Tuesday, Sandra Graham's 71-year-old husband Gordon alleged two of his wife's sisters attempted to end her life, after he had been drugged and forced out of his Bay View home.

Mrs Graham had been diagnosed with lymphoma cancer in the early 1990s, and by September 2003, she had decided to return from Cranford Hospice to die at home.

As Mrs Graham's last days approached, her family flocked to her bedside. Among those were Mrs Graham's sister Grace Tipoki, and her husband Pani, and another sister, Rawinia Cairns, and her husband Daniel.

Mr Graham said he was woken on the morning of September 6, 2003, by his wife crying out. He said he saw Mrs Tipoki holding a pillow across his wife's face, while Mrs Cairns held her legs down.

Mr Graham told the inquest he hit Mrs Tipoki on the side of the head, saying "get out you murdering bitch".

Attempts to telephone the police were apparently thwarted when Mr Graham saw the phone jacks had been pulled from the wall.

When he tried to go upstairs to use another phone, he ran into Mrs Cairns, who, he said, kicked him down the stairs.

Mr Tipoki then took Mr Graham to the back of the house and gave him car keys and a cellphone, telling him to go for a drive and that he would call him "when they'd finished".

Mr Graham said Mr Tipoki told him: "I believe the women are to do their thing and send her to the angels."

Mr Graham returned to his home and found his wife in a wheelchair with her eyes rolled back. Candles were burning and Mr Tipoki was holding her around the neck, while Mrs Cairns was chanting in what Mr Graham described as "tongues".

As Mr Graham knelt in front of the wheelchair, his wife grabbed his wrists. "Her breathing started to get shallow and she gave a sigh - she passed away. She was looking at me all the time," he said.

Later, Mr Graham told the funeral director he believed an attempt would be made to "extract" his wife's body, because Mr Tipoki had said the "old people" would want her up in Tuai.

Mr Graham hired a security firm to guard his wife's body, and also claimed he had been drugged with some of her medication. He said her clothing and jewellery had been taken, and that there were plans for her body to be "purified".

But Mrs Graham's family said they were not trying to harm her and no one ever tried to put a pillow over her face. Mrs Tipoki said Mr Graham must have seen her trying to carry out reiki healing.

Mrs Graham had kept saying she wanted to "go higher", Mrs Tipoki said. "We might have been saying prayers - I wouldn't call that chanting. We're Catholics, so we don't go into tongues.

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY