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Home / New Zealand

Teen murder accused had attended church prior to stabbing

By Belinda Feek
Reporter·NZ Herald·
1 Oct, 2018 11:26 PM4 mins to read

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Norman Kingi was killed by a single stab wound to the heart prior to midnight on July 28, last year. Photo / File

Norman Kingi was killed by a single stab wound to the heart prior to midnight on July 28, last year. Photo / File

A teen girl who fatally stabbed a Hamilton man in the heart had hours prior attended a church youth group session.

The girl, now aged 16, is one of two charged with the murder of Norman Kingi, 53, who died after he and partner Vicki Lee Reihana confronted the pair and a third girl, 12, who were breaking into their car.

Kingi and Reihana had earlier attended a function in nearby Frankton when they busted the girls in their Nissan Primera outside their Ranui St, Nawton, house on July 28, last year.

The accused, which also includes a girl now aged 14, had their name suppression continued for the duration of the trial by Justice Timothy Brewer yesterday.

Giving evidence before the jury of five men and seven women in the High Court at Hamilton was the accused's youth group leader, Robin Buser of The Link church.

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He said he picked up the older accused and the 12-year-old to attend the session.

By the time he was packing up the church about 9.30pm, both the accused and the 12-year-old had left.

Fellow youth group pastor Ritane Wallace said the older accused had attended the church for about two-and-a-half years leading up to the incident.

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The court earlier heard Kingi and Reihana were walking back to their home on Ranui St after attending a function when they saw a group of girls breaking into their car.

After a confrontation, Kingi was stabbed in the heart by the older accused. She has admitted stabbing Kingi but through her counsel Ron Mansfield said it was an instinctive reaction to protect herself, not an action that had murderous intent.

Reihana yesterday told the jury of five men and seven women she initially thought her partner had been punched in the chest by a teenage girl who had just broken into their car.

But as she knelt down to check on him as he was laying on his back on the road outside their Ranui St home, he began gurgling blood.

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The girls had fled, and she began screaming for help.

Reihana was back in the witness box this morning and agreed with defence counsel Ron Mansfield that the "punch" or stabbing, looked "slightly awkward" as if in slow motion and didn't appear to be a "hard punch".

Although she was standing behind her partner, holding the accuseds' 12-year-old friend up against the car, she could tell her fist was aimed towards Kingi's upper torso area.

She denied her partner had raised his fists but admitted to thinking that something might happen as both parties were yelling and swearing at each other.

In her statement to police, she described her partner as "absolutely nutting off".

When pressed by Mansfield, she admitted that she wasn't watching the pair the whole time, but was at times turning her head back to the girl she was holding and telling her to be quiet.

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Reihana admitted in questioning from Laybourn that the 14-year-old never said anything during the time she and her co-accused walk back towards them, and all the yelling and swearing was coming from the 16-year-old and the 12-year-old.

She also agreed that the younger accused was standing a couple of metres behind the 16-year-old when she "punched" Kingi.

In re-examination from crown prosecutor Philip Morgan QC she said it was the older accused who first said "I will f****** do you's".

She said her partner replied, "yeah I will do you too". She thought to herself that her partner wasn't going to back down to the girl.

THE DEFENCE

Yesterday in his opening, Mansfield told the court his client admitted stabbing Kingi but she did not do it with any murderous intent.

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Rather, she was doing it to protect herself during a "terrifying" few seconds against an angry and intoxicated Kingi who was confronting her about the car break-in.

He said the girls went back to the car not to attack the couple but to get their friend who said was being held up against the car "forcefully and roughly".

Roger Laybourn, lawyer for the younger accused who was 13 at the time, said his client never had the knife and wasn't responsible for the stabbing which "was over in a matter of seconds".

"In essence, the confrontation and fatal stabbing of Mr Kingi was over before [accused], a [then] 13-year-old, could even process what was going on at all.

"It will be submitted to you that there was nothing that could be suggested to make her a party to the joint action where death or serious injury was a probably consequence.

"She returned because of concerns about the 12-year-old and suddenly there was a confrontation, which didn't involve her."

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The trial, before Justice Timothy Brewer, is set down for two weeks.

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