KEY POINTS:
Everyone knows the tale of Hansel and Gretel - the Grimm story of two children taken deep into the bush at the behest of their wicked stepmother and left to die.
In this children's classic, the pair found their way out and lived happily ever after. But there was no fairy tale ending for Cheyenne Petersen, just 18 months old when she was carried into the bush by her P-addled mother Natasha - and left to die.
In the fable, the wicked stepmother died. In this grim slice of reality, where the drug P painted an ultimately fatal backdrop of fantasy and hallucinations, Natasha survived - but little Cheyenne didn't.
She drowned in a shallow stream and, when her plump pink body, clad only in a T-shirt, floral pants and a purple stone necklace, was recovered by police it was obvious she had tried desperately to find her own way out of the thick bush near Whangarei Heads.
There was another connection to the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. In the story, the two children found their way out of the forest by leaving a trail of pebbles they follow to get home.
In battling through the bush with Cheyenne, Natasha Petersen unknowingly left a trail of detritus - nappies, children's clothing and some personal effects.
Maybe older children - say, Hansel and Gretel's age - might have been able to follow this accidental trail to safety. But not a shoeless, motherless toddler.
So this real life horror story ended last week with the mother jailed for just two-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
But what possessed 31-year-old Natasha Petersen to so completely ignore that most deep-seated of maternal instincts - protection of a child - on that awful day of March 7 this year?
She thought there were men in the trees. She thought they had guns. She thought they were shooting at her. She even dodged the bullets. Which didn't exist.
"They" told her to drive her car and stop near the bush. She took Cheyenne into the bush to protect her; to get away. Natasha's drug-twisted mind told her that she would be keeping her baby somewhere safe by leaving her in the bush. It is difficult to understand, even with Natasha's methamphetamine-induced psychosis, how she did not realise that an 18-month-old toddler could never survive out there alone. It's a case again highlighting the horrors of P - and how it can turn sane people into paranoid maniacs.
No one knows what Cheyenne's final few hours were like. Hopefully, she died quickly and painlessly, without a lengthy terror of abandonment.
More than 12 hours after dumping Cheyenne, Petersen eventually led police to her body. It was obvious the wee girl had tried to find a way out of the bush. Dressed in a purple T-shirt and floral shorts, she was nearly 50 metres from the spot where she had been left the day before by her mother, her pants were soiled and her ghostly-white body battered and bruised.
When police found her, she could have been sleeping. There even seemed to be a smile on her face. After leading police to the site, Petersen tried desperately to revive her baby who had been dead for several hours. Even if the child hadn't drowned, she would surely have succumbed to the elements.
"There was no way out. No one will ever know the terror that child must have suffered in the darkness," Crown prosecutor Mike Smith said at Petersen's sentencing in Whangarei on Thursday. "Her [Petersen's] selfishness in finding shelter and sustenance for herself; putting her own needs before her child, a child she had left at the bottom of the gorge." When Petersen confessed, she told police that at the time she thought she was being "chased by men with guns" and had taken Cheyenne into the bush, "a safe place", to protect her from harm.
What later emerged was that the long-time drug addict had been smoking methamphetamine for days leading up to the tragedy, and on March 7 was suffering from persecutory delusions.
As Justice David Baragwanath would later remark at sentencing, "all roads [in this case] lead back to P".
Cheyenne wasn't the first child Petersen had let down.
Several years ago, Child Youth and Family seized her two other children, boys now aged 8 and 9, after complaints of regular neglect. Custody was given to their father.
In 2005, Petersen fell pregnant again, but no father was listed on Cheyenne's birth certificate.
After 15 years of drug abuse - including convictions for possession of morphine, needles and syringes, and various cannabis-related offences - some thought Cheyenne's arrival would finally provide Petersen with the motivation she needed to kick her addiction. Instead, her drug use spiralled out of control.
After days of P use, Petersen lapsed into a sleepless, frantic blur of paranoia and delusion. Friends tried to help, but to no avail.
Having just broken up with a partner of eight years, she was staying at the Onerahi home of Quentin Joass and Rawinia Rankin.
Joass recounted to the court how Petersen arrived home early one morning "very agitated, quite concerned about something".
"Tash thought somebody was out to get her. She said men were in the trees opposite our house, they had guns and wanted to shoot her."
On one occasion she had "thrown herself to the floor dodging bullets and yelling, 'Get down'."
Rankin also recalled how erratic Petersen had been and was even too scared to take a shower, fearing someone might "hurt her".
On March 7, just after 3pm, she left the Onerahi house and drove with Cheyenne towards Whangarei Heads, about 20km from the city. "I begged her not to leave," Joass said.
Petersen then drove up and down Te Rongo Rd. Locals recalled seeing her with a "vacant" look on her face before parking the car.
With Cheyenne tucked under her arm she made her way 100 metres through dense bush down a steep hill to a creek where she abandoned the child. Just 300 metres away was Veronica Quin's home, where Petersen broke in, cleaned herself up, had something to eat and fell asleep.
She was discovered the next morning by Quin in her garage. Petersen's first words to Quin were "they've taken my baby. I backed up into the hallway and she went and crouched down underneath the window at the garage door and said, 'They're out there, they've got guns'," Quin told a depositions hearing in August.
Petersen dialled 111 and told the operator: "Oh hello. Um, someone's taken my baby. In the bush. I don't know if they've left her in the bush or what ... or if they've killed her ...
"I was in the bush, I was with her hiding. They just made me drive my car and park it up and they told me to run with my baby or they were gonna shoot."
When police arrived, a dishevelled Petersen was hysterical. Her T-shirt was filthy, her fingernails "dirty black", and she had a lump of black eyeliner in the corner of one eye, Quin recalled. Petersen had no sense of time, how long it was since she'd deserted Cheyenne - or even if her daughter was still alive.
In Petersen's car, police found several $50 and $10 notes, nappies, discarded food, an Instant Kiwi ticket, a box of alcopops and a letter from Work and Income. Petersen then led Detective Constable William Wilkinson down a steep gully to where she had abandoned Cheyenne. Children's clothing, nappies and some of Petersen's personal items littered the trail to where a shoeless Cheyenne lay drowned in a shallow creek, with water covering her nose and mouth.
"As I approached the pool I noticed the child straight away and made a comment like, 'Oh no', or 'God'. Petersen was screaming, 'Cheyenne', 'Cheyenne', 'Cheyenne'," Wilkinson told the hearing.
Dragging her daughter's body from the creek, Petersen tried to resuscitate the child and pleaded with Wilkinson that she would "do anything" if he could "bring my child back".
Questioned by the police later that day, Petersen told Detective Constable Belinda Campbell that she had put Cheyenne in a safe place where there was no water. "I didn't murder her or anything, they told me to put her down ... they told me to run."
"I can't remember much. I was with my girlfriend Ra and we were going to go to a motel because we didn't feel safe. She's not going to be my mate now that she knows Cheyenne's dead. I'm going to have no one."
On Friday, Petersen was sentenced to two-and-a-half years' imprisonment for manslaughter. The Crown had argued she should receive at least five years' imprisonment, but she will be eligible for parole in just 10 months.
Crown prosecutor Mike Smith acknowledged at sentencing that Petersen had had "difficult personal problems", but she had chosen a life of drugs and now a small child had no voice. 'The prisoner is a drug user ... and as a consequence a child has died."
Petersen's defence counsel, Arthur Fairley, argued his client had a vulnerability that made her susceptible to drug use. While the death was tragic "and a day hadn't gone by since that this child is not in the mind of the prisoner", she had never expected to suffer a drug-induced psychosis.
So was Petersen or the drug P to blame for the death of Cheyenne?
"It's difficult. Here we have a mum who knows she has taken P and knows that as a result of that she has lost her baby," Fairley told the Herald on Sunday.
"It's a hell of a warning about the dangers of P. She knows that now.
"Every time I've seen her she has been tearful. Every conversation I have had with her, it always comes back to the baby. She loved Cheyenne, absolutely."
Petersen had been drug-free while on remand and electronic bail and there was hope she would remain so, despite "her long-term vulnerability", Fairley said.
Her parents, Bruce and Wendy Petersen, bear their daughter no malice and were in court to support her. "I don't think they blame themselves," Fairley said. "Who knows in their private moments, but that's a difficult one. Any parent in circumstances like this beats themselves up.
"But it would be very unfair of them to do this. I feel sorry for all these people - her other children, her, and the baby. You can't split tragedy. It's a tragedy for everyone."
Whangarei inquiry head, Detective Sergeant Mike Blowers, told the Herald on Sunday that no better case highlighted the perils of P, an insidious drug making people totally oblivious to the consequences of their actions.
"People become accustomed to it and start taking lots and then all of a sudden it gets out of hand."
It had been a difficult case for police to investigate and prosecute, Blowers said. Most officers working the case were parents.
Detective Senior Sergeant Marty Ruth said the North had a "significant drug culture" and in recent years there had been a "major migration" from cannabis to methamphetamine use.
"You only have to ask the teachers what they're dealing with in schools to work out the extent of the problem."
Unfortunately, school was something Cheyenne Petersen would never experience, Ruth said.
"That is so very sad, but hopefully people will take some lessons from this terrible tragedy."
Transcript of the 111 call
Operator: Police emergency, where is your emergency?
Petersen: Oh hello... um, someone's taken my baby... in the bush.
O: Taken your baby in what?
P: In the bush.
O: In the bush? How long ago ma'am?
P: (Crying) Couple of hours ago last night
O: You just got to a phone now?
P: Yes because they had guns and they...
O: Okay, do you know who this was?
P: Nah, these dudes.
O: Do you know who they were?
P: No I don't. But my baby, they took my baby and I don't know if they've left her in the bush or what, or if they've killed her or taken her.
O: So what time last night?
P: Oh, um, I don't know. I didn't have the watch.
O: Okay, and where were you at the time?
P: They've taken me.
O: Sorry, where were you when they took your baby?
P: I was in the bush. I was with her, hiding.
Phone handed over from Petersen to Veronica Quin.
QUIN: This lady. I've just taken my children to school and I've come back and this lady is in my garage. What would you like me to do?
O:... So okay, so you found this woman in your garage. What did she say to you?
Q: Well, to be honest, I just come into the house, unlocked the front door and come in the house and I heard, heard a voice.
O: Yeah.
Q: And I looked out the front door and I heard the voice again. I opened the garage door. And, ah, there she was. Um, and she said to me that a man called Brian has taken her baby.
O: Right. So she said that someone, this guy Brian, took her baby last night.
Q: Yeah she said that she's been in my garage since dark last night. She said that this person had someone with him and they had guns and that they told her that if she came away from this house that we would all be shot.
Petersen resumes:
O: So last night at, you don't know what time?
P: No, they, they just made me drive my car and park it up and they told me to run with my baby or they were gonna shoot.
O: Okay, all right Natasha. Where were you last night when these males turned up?
P: I was at my girlfriend's... in Onerahi.
O: And these males came?
P: Yes, met me down the road and made me follow them.
O: Now tell me what happened? The males came to that house?
P: No, no, they've been talking to me. They were talking to me and then they had a camera telling me what to do.
O: And then what happened?
P: And then they told me to pack a bag.
O: Do these males live there, or did they turn up?
P: No. No one turned up, they just told me.
O: What? Were they in the house too?
P: No. They were up in the tree. I know it sounds really silly but they were.
O: Yeah, and what did they say to you?
P: Pack your bags, get yourself, hurry up (inaudible) in prison...
O: Who is going to prison?
P: Me. And I don't know what for. All right they were gonna kill me and kill my baby and all my friends before I did what they said.
O: Yeah and then what?
P: I jumped in my car. And I left.
O: With the baby?
P: Yeah.
O: Yeah.
P: My baby could be down there in the water.
O: Natasha, so where were these males when you went in the car?
P: Can you get a helicopter?
O: Where were these males. When you got in the car were they following you or what?
P: Yes.
O:... Where did you drive to?
P: I turned out and down on the left hand side by Parua Bay pub... and they made me run down the bank. They made, they told me to. I climbed one of the fences before they took my baby... they told me to grab my baby if I wanted to spend a bit of time with her before they took her.
O: So they took your baby at the end of that road?
P: No, I ran off with her.
O: And they had guns?
P: Yes.
O: How many guns?
P: I don't know how many.
O: So they were making you run in the bush and then they took your baby?
P: Yes.
O: And who had the gun? Did Brian have a gun?
P: They all did... I reckon they're around the house I'm at now. I'm trying to get out.
O: What, did they follow you there? How did they get there?
P: They were on foot chasing me through the bush.
O: How old is your baby? One and a half?
P: Yeah, her name's Cheyenne.
O: And do you know where Brian lives?
P: No, I don't. Hello, hello, it's gone dead.
