Texas Doctor (inset) was sitting in his parked car on Penrose Rd, Mt Wellington when he was shot by Sione Tupou (left) in July 2024 as part of a long-running family feud. Photo / NZME composite
Texas Doctor (inset) was sitting in his parked car on Penrose Rd, Mt Wellington when he was shot by Sione Tupou (left) in July 2024 as part of a long-running family feud. Photo / NZME composite
Rebels MC member Texas Jack Doctor was shot twice at close range while parked outside a block of shops in Mt Wellington.
Patched Head Hunter Sione Tupou has now pleaded guilty to murder and will be sentenced in August.
The shooting was preceded by at least five incidents of violence between their families.
The murder of a young man shot dead in his car was the fatal climax of an escalating feud between two Auckland families with gang links, the Herald can reveal.
The victim was Texas Jack Doctor who was targeted after a chance encounter outside the SuperLiquor in Mt Wellington on a Saturday night in July 2024.
Shot twice at close range while sitting behind the wheel of his car, the 22-year-old was a patched member of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle club.
The man who pulled the trigger, Sione Tupou, 24, was a member of the rival Head Hunters gang.
At the time of Doctor’s death, there were already existing tensions between the two gangs which had led to a Head Hunter being shot dead in a suburban park in broad daylight.
Several members and associates of the Rebels were later charged with murder.
It was easy to assume the murder of Doctor was a continuation of the gang conflict.
But the motive for Tupou shooting Doctor was far more personal.
In the lead up to his death, there had been five “significant violence incidents” between the Tupou and Doctor families across a 12-month period.
“Several of these involved firearms being discharged at addresses of the Tupou family,” according to a police summary of the case.
“These incidents appear to be the result of ongoing retaliations between the families, with the Tupou family and the Doctor family being recorded as offenders and victims at various stages.”
No one is exactly sure how the feud started. But from several different court cases, the Herald has pieced together a timeline of how the quarrel spiralled out of control.
Texas Jack Doctor (inset) was shot twice at close range while sitting in his car parked outside shops on Penrose Rd, Mt Wellington in July 2024. Photo / Isaac Davison
The first recorded incident was on the evening of 19 July 2022, when Texas Junior Doctor - the father of Texas Jack Doctor - and another son, Wiremu, turned up unannounced at Sione Tupou’s house in the suburb of Glen Innes.
Tupou lived at the Taniwha St property with his mother.
Around 11.45pm, Tupou’s three sisters dropped their mother home after an evening out.
As she waved goodbye to her daughters through the window, Texas and Wiremu Doctor, as well as a cousin, arrived brandishing shotguns.
Texas Doctor fired at the house. Shotgun pellets shattered the window of the laundry where Tupou’s mother was standing, with the shards of glass falling into her hair.
He also fired, twice, at the three sisters as they reversed their car onto Taniwha St which punctured the two rear tyres.
“That’s what happens when you f*** with family,” one of the men shouted.
Retaliation was swift.
The Doctor family lived in the nearby suburb of Panmure, just 3km from the Tupou residence.
Three days later, someone shot Texas Junior Doctor outside his home. No one was ever arrested, but he planned to take matters into his own hands.
But in a text message to an associate, Texas Junior Doctor gave an explanation as to why he opened fire on the Tupou home in the first place.
“These f***ing idiots are after my oldest son [Texas Jack]. They beat him up in January, three car loads [of men] and put him in hospital,” Texas Junior Doctor wrote.
“I don’t know what they have against my boys but I’m glad it was me that got shot [and] not them.”
Doctor asked his associate for more ammunition for his firearms.
“I have to protect my boys now.”
A few weeks later, on 12 August 2022, Texas Junior Doctor and one other person returned to Tupou’s house in Glen Innes.
“Texas Doctor and the other person got out the vehicle and walked up the driveway of the address to the front door,” court documents state. “They were both holding a shotgun or other firearm.
“They fired 12 shots into the front door of the address, which caused extensive damage to a number of rooms inside the house.”
But no one was home - Sione Tupou and his family had already moved out.
The next day, police searched Texas Doctor’s vehicle and found a Norinco semi-automatic rifle and ammunition.
He and his younger son Wiremu- both members of the Rebels motorcycle gang - were charged with discharging a firearm with reckless disregard for the first incident.
The elder Doctor was also charged with intentional damage for the second incident.
Texas Doctor (right) and his son Wiremu appear in Auckland District Court for sentencing on firearms charges. Photo / Craig Kapitan
The pair pleaded guilty and were sentenced together in the Auckland District Court in April 2024.
Texas Doctor was sentenced to four years and three months in prison, later reduced to four years on appeal, while Wiremu Doctor was sentenced to two years and seven months.
The court was told that Texas Doctor only joined the Rebels gang in 2022 to provide protection to his sons, but Judge John Bergseng said the intergenerational nature of the case “speaks volumes”.
“Nothing is more telling than that you’re sitting in the dock next to your father, both facing the same charge,” he told the younger Doctor. “While your father has done his best in difficult circumstances ... ultimately your decision to join the Rebels motorcycle club has led you to this situation.”
But the family feud did not end with the Doctors going to prison. Three months later, Texas Jack Doctor was shot dead.
Like his father and younger brother, Texas Jack Doctor had also joined the Rebels and gang violence was a feature of his life too.
He and another man allegedly shot someone in his car near the Li’l Abners Takeaways in Papatoetoe in March 2023.
The complainant was repeatedly shot through his passenger side window four times and received multiple wounds from shotgun pellets - but survived after driving himself to hospital.
The co-defendant pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm but the Crown dropped the charge against Texas Jack Doctor because of a lack of evidence.
Around the same time, Doctor was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to charges from a fracas inside the Sylvia Park Mall food court.
He was at the food court with his brother Wiremu when a scrap broke out between the pair and a group of Head Hunters.
Chairs and punches were thrown. Police found a 23cm knife on Doctor after his arrest.
He was carrying the blade for protection, his lawyer Bradley Moyer said at a later court hearing, because of the earlier attack on his father when he was shot on the driveway of their home.
Twelve months after the gang brawl in Sylvia Park, another chance encounter with the Head Hunters ended in Texas Jack Doctor’s death.
Sione Tupou and another Head Hunter walked out of the Super Liquor store on Penrose Rd around 10.35pm on Saturday 13 July, each carrying a 24-bottle box of Speights beers.
After they put the drinks in the boot of the black Volkswagen Golf, which was registered to the second Head Hunter, Texas Doctor drove his silver Mazda hatchback into the carpark.
He stepped out of his car and started to walk towards the liquor store, just as the Volkswagen began to reverse out of the parking space.
Doctor recognised someone in the black vehicle and acknowledged them by nodding his head.
But he didn’t see the looming danger until it was too late.
Sitting in the back seat of the Volkswagen, Tupou opened the passenger door while the car was still moving.
Doctor immediately turned around and returned to the driver’s seat of his Mazda, and shut the door. Tupou was close behind with a gun in his hand.
“Tupou approached within 3 metres of Mr Doctor’s car and fired twice at Mr Doctor as he sat in his vehicle,” according to a summary of the police investigation.
“After the shooting, Mr Tupou immediately got back into the passenger seat of the black Volkswagen, and [the other Head Hunter] drove Mr Tupou away from the scene at speed.”
Sione Tupou appears in the Auckland District Court after being charged with the murder of Texas Jack Doctor.Photo /Sylvie Whinray
Doctor suffered two gunshot wounds in the right-hand side of his torso, and the injuries were fatal.
During the homicide investigation that followed, police found a firearm in the spare tyre-well of Doctor’s car.
Tupou went on the run but handed himself in at the Auckland City police station several days later and was charged with murder.
He exercised his right to silence at the time but earlier this month uttered a single word: guilty.
Now 24, Tupou will be sentenced in the High Court at Auckland in August.
The mandatory sentence for murder is life, but the judge will have to decide how many years Tupou should spend in prison before he can apply for parole.
Extra security is likely to be needed for the hearing after Tupou’s most recent appearance in the dock.
Justice Mathew Downs was forced to take the drastic step of closing the courtroom to the public because supporters of Tupou and the family of Texas Doctor were “spoiling for a fight”.
“The mood was one of restlessness and agitation,” Justice Downs said. “There was going to be violence between the two opposing groups.”
- Additional reporting Katie Harris
Jared Savage covers crime and justice issues, with a particular interest in organised crime. He joined the Herald in 2006 and has won a dozen journalism awards in that time, including twice being named Reporter of the Year. He is also the author of Gangland and Gangster’s Paradise.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
