Sophia Crestani death inquest: Emotional inquest hears from witnesses caught in crush

Sophia Crestani, 19, died at this Dundas St flat in October, 2019. Photo / NZME and Linda Robertson

People were screaming, crying and calling for help while tangled in a crush of bodies in the stairwell of an out-of-control student party where Sophia Crestani died, a former tenant has said.

On October 6, 2019, 19-year-old Crestani and hundreds of others crammed into a 114-year-old villa on Dundas St, known as The Manor, where a party dubbed “The Manor presents Maggot-fest” was being held.

The party spiralled out of control as more than 300 people attended, prompting tenants to call the police; in the ensuing chaos, Sophia was fatally crushed on the staircase.

An emotional inquest into her death entered its second day in Dunedin District Court on Tuesday.

Sophia’s parents, Elspeth McMillan and Bede Crestani, have travelled from Wellington for the inquest and are representing themselves to cross-examine witnesses.

Sophia Crestani, 19, died at this Dundas St flat during a party in October 2019. Photo / NZME and Linda Robertson.

The tenant, one of eight who lived at The Manor, told the inquest that, about 11.30pm, he was with some friends behind the DJ booth downstairs. The house was packed and people could not move anywhere.

He and his friends were able to leave the DJ booth by a window and hopped onto a landing outside to re-enter the two-storey house.

The stairwell was packed with people: “No one was moving.”

At the bottom of the stairs, he spoke to a friend of Crestani’s who believed she was behind her. However, the tenant was not certain about this as he was “quite drunk”.

He recalled a push starting from the top of the stairs as a slow movement that was “getting annoying”. He could tell people were going to start falling.

Crestani’s friend fell and the tenant helped her to her feet, shouting for people to stop swaying.

He told the inquest somebody was flicking the hallway light on and off and he shouted for them to stop.

As the pushing intensified, multiple people fell and slid down the stairs. The tenant did not recall whether the light was on or off.

He did not recall falling until he was tangled in bodies at the bottom of the stairs on his back, with his head almost out of the door.

“You could hear girls on the bottom, screaming and crying, screaming ‘Help me’,” he said.

“I think there was only one person below me, everyone was above me.”

He estimated there were 30 to 40 people in the stairwell.

Sophia with her parents at the Queen Margaret College Year 13 Ball in Wellington in June 2017. Photo / Crestani family

The person above him held himself in a push-up position to try to stop himself from crushing the tenant.

“My leg was wedged in, there was so much weight.

“Girls were yelling ‘Help’, I was yelling ‘Call the cops’.

“I remember someone yelling he or she was not breathing.”

He recalled someone in a uniform pulling him from the crush, either police or campus security, but he did not see Crestani at the bottom of the stairs or being carried past.

Afterwards, he sat outside, exhausted, trying to get the other flatmates together.

“All the boys were pretty upset, we heard someone had been hurt. We heard that someone was getting CPR.”

A friend of Crestani’s told the inquest it took her about 15 minutes to get down the stairs.

She wept while recalling the night’s events and her attempts to find Crestani in the aftermath.

She said she was one of the first to fall in the stairwell.

She could feel people walking on her and an immense pressure on her leg. She was scared it would break and screamed out.

She could hear Crestani and another friend screaming but could not see where they were.

“I felt completely hopeless and realised I had no control over what was happening.”

She was on the floor face down and a boy on top of her was saying he was sorry. She told the inquest she thought someone stood on his head, and she was telling him it was going to be okay.

Someone managed to grab her ankle and pull her into the hallway.

In the crush, she lost two earrings, her shoes, a sock and a jumper.

After the party, there was confusion over what had happened and multiple stories, from three people having died to someone being stabbed.

It became apparent that Crestani was missing, so the witness went with another friend to the hospital, where they asked after her.

They were there for an hour before police arrived and told them she had died.

She told the inquest that, while in the crush, she was terrified. “I thought that I was going to die.”

Crestani’s parents thanked the witness for caring for their daughter.

Tenant weeps telling inquest of moment that haunts him

A former tenant at The Manor wept earlier while telling the inquest that the decision to lock bedroom doors during the overcrowded party had plagued his mind “every day” since.

The party was planned as a final “doozie” before the flat was sold to the university. About 250 people were invited on social media, though hundreds of others were notified by word of mouth, the inquest heard.

It was one of three large parties hosted at The Manor that year.

The tenants barricaded three rooms to limit the party areas, covered the floor in plastic and set up two DJ booths, one upstairs protected by farm gates and one downstairs by crowd control barriers.

During cross-examination, Bede Crestani asked the witness about a previous party in July that received several noise complaints resulting in an email from their property manager that they would be referred to the Tenancy Tribunal, and the subsequent decision of the tenants to host another party.

The house at Dundas St in Dunedin where student Sophia Crestani died. Photo / Jason Oxenham

The witness said he felt there was an expectation, as a “named” flat, to have two or three big parties a year and the tenants felt opposition to the property manager.

“Retrospectively, it doesn’t seem like they were out to get us, but that was the way relationships of North Dunedin flats seemed to go with their owners.”

He said the tenants listed the party on the online register Good One, which they thought would have alerted local authorities to the party.

He said barricading some rooms was “retrospectively ... one of the worst decisions we’ve ever made”.

He told the inquest he was in his bedroom with two friends, with the door locked, during most of the party.

As the party progressed, there was banging on his door and yelling outside but he said this did not raise alarm bells as it had happened before.

Crestani asked: “What were you doing to look after the health and safety of your guests so they didn’t die?”

“Not much. Nothing,” said the witness.

Sophia Crestani and her mother Elspeth McMillan. Photo / Supplied

Elspeth McMillan asked the witness if he thought opening his door would have allowed people to get to safety. He said: “Yes.”

The witness wept as he told the inquest he thought about that decision “every day”.

Rebekah Jordan, counsel assisting the coroner, asked if the tenants were prioritising personal property over the safety of partygoers.

“At the time we weren’t prioritising one over the other but, looking back, it can look that way,” he said.

Another Manor tenant recalls moment he found out Sophia had died

A tenant who was romantically involved with Sophia Crestani in the months before her death told the inquest about the night she died.

He met her through mutual friends. She had visited The Manor a handful of times before the party.

He had contacted her through social media earlier in the day and saw her occasionally throughout the party on October 6.

He last saw her some time after 9pm at the top of the stairs outside his bedroom. He “gave her a hug and a kiss” and told her they’d catch up later.

“She wasn’t absolutely written off, stumbling around or anything, she was completely with it.”

He had been in his bedroom for about 15 to 30 minutes “having a breather” with his mates when the music suddenly stopped.

About five minutes later, they saw lights from the multiple emergency response vehicles outside.

He told the inquest he went out of his window onto a balcony and filmed the scene on Snapchat.

When he re-entered the flat, a police officer on the stairs told him and others to leave.

Outside, a friend approached and hugged the witness but he did not know why. Shortly after, another friend hugged him and said: “I think it’s Sophia.”

He said he did not try to contact Crestani after the party, as he “didn’t want to believe” what had happened. About 3am, he was at a friend’s flat when another friend arrived and told him Crestani had died.

He told the inquest the tenants had taken safety steps after previous parties and he believed they were enough to make the October party safe.

It was the first year all of the tenants had been flatting and they were all learning to leave independently, he said.

Another of the eight tenants gave evidence in the afternoon.

He said he did not find out until the day following the party that Crestani had died.

He said their attempts to ensure the safety of guests related to registering the party on Good One and contacting Campus Watch.

He spent most of the party in the tenant’s rooms and was not completely aware of what was happening in the party.

The lock on his door was broken and so it was boarded closed, but admitted if it could have been opened, it would potentially have saved Crestani’s life.

Coroner Heather McKenzie began the inquest on Monday by addressing Sophia’s parents, saying their loss was “incalculable”.

“Sophia was a much-loved family member who was in Dunedin to study at the University of Otago ... She was just beginning her adult life when she died.”

Sophia Crestani. Photo / Supplied

She acknowledged Sophia’s parents’ desire to see changes in Dunedin’s student culture, and the creation of the Sophia Charter, a shared commitment by Dunedin stakeholders, including the university, police, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Otago Property Investors Association, Dunedin City Council and Otago University Students’ Association to enhance the safety and wellbeing of the student community.

The task of the inquest was not to apportion liability but to consider what had happened in Dunedin since Sophia’s death and decide whether any recommendations should be made to help prevent similar deaths, she said.

McMillan told the Herald ahead of the hearing: “There has been a lot to absorb and deal with in preparation for the inquest and we are thankful that it is finally happening.

“Hopefully it will provide us with answers to what, when, how and why, some accountability and some positive recommendations so that another senseless death or injuries can be avoided.”

The inquest continues.

Ben Tomsett is a Multimedia Journalist for the New Zealand Herald, based in Dunedin.