WINZ worker tells of “playing dead” after being shot
A WINZ case manager has described how she “played dead” when a gunman shot her as she hid beneath her desk in the Ashburton office, so that she would not be shot a second time.
Lindy Louise Curtis, of Rakaia, told the fifth day of the trial of Russell John Tully in the High Court at Christchurch: “I thought I was history and I was wondering who was going to look after my family.”
She said the gunman appeared to be aiming at her head before he fired, but she thought she must have raised her leg as he pulled the trigger because she could not understand how the shot struck her on the outside of her left thigh.
“I thought he would realise he had not finished me off and he might shoot me again,” she told Justice Cameron Mander and the jury. She then played dead and the man walked away.
Mrs Curtis said she had been working in the WINZ office in Ashburton as a case manager for about a year prior to the shootings.
On September 1, 2014, she was working with a client at her desk. “I heard a blast and I looked up towards the reception area. I saw a man with a black balaclava on, and a gun.”
She initially thought it was a hoax, and didn’t understand what was going on. “I suddenly realised something was very wrong.” She told the client to get under the desk, and she got under the table as well and they lay facing each other.
She saw the gunman approach her desk. “I have a memory of watching his footsteps from under the desk,” she said. He then came to her desk and she was shot.
She heard a “very emotional” female voice saying, “Please, I beg you, I beg you, you don’t need to hurt us,” and then she heard another gun blast.
She thought she then saw him in the reception area, putting on a black backpack and leaving.
“I played dead for a while but looked up for a little bit because I wanted to see what was going on.”
Tully, 49, is on trial for the murders of Peggy Turuhira Noble and Susan Leigh Cleveland and the attempted murder of Lindy Curtis and Kim Elizabeth Adams, in a shotgun shooting at the Ashburton Work and Income NZ office on September 1, 2014.
He is also charged with setting a man trap – a steel wire stretched between two trees – and unlawful possession of two shotguns. One shotgun is an exhibit in court, but the Crown says the one allegedly used in the shootings has never been found.
Tully has no lawyer of his own but is represented in court by two amicus curiae (friends of the court), James Rapley and Phil Shamy. Andrew McRae and Mark Zarifeh represent the Crown.
Tully was not present in court when the charges were read but he was deemed to have entered not guilty pleas. He has disrupted the court twice when he was present, by talking over other people. So far he has only remained in court for a total of four minutes during his trial, before Justice Mander has asked for him to be removed.
The trial is continuing.
Category: News
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