Teenager ‘polite but drugged’ on night of killing
A teenage murder accused appeared “polite but drugged” when he turned up at the Odyssey House rehabilitation centre after killing an elderly Upper Riccarton man in his home.
It was then-16-year-old Taniela Kotoitoga Daven Tiako Waitokia’s second visit to Odyssey House that night, August 1, 2015. Security cameras caught both his visits.
He had stopped there as he passed – travelling on a small child’s BMX bicycle – as he went to the home of 87-year-old Harold Richardson, who would be found dead the next morning.
The murder trial in the High Court at Christchurch was told that he found the rehab centre unlocked and went in, but there was no-one there. The residents had gone out iceskating with a group of staff.
When they occupants came back they found a handwritten note he had left on the bench. He wrote that he had just “popped in” to see someone at the centre where he had previously been a resident. He wanted “to ask if I could join again. I need help.”
Christine Robertson, a youth worker at Odyssey House, told the trial that he came back later the same evening, after the group had returned.
She spoke to him, and he again asked for help.
“He was a polite young man, but he was clearly under the influence of something,” she told Justice Cameron Mander and the jury. “I could not help him right there and then. I tried to get him to come back next day, and get a phone number off him, but he didn’t have a phone.”
Waitokia had a burger which one of the residents made, but Miss Robertson said she had to ask him to leave because he was not supposed to be there.
She tried to get him out of the house quickly because he was drugged – that could be a trigger for the other residents undergoing rehabilitation. Even so, she said he impressed her with his manners.
One of the residents gave evidence of approaching Waitokia after he left the centre, to ask if he had any cigarettes. He did not have any, but he gave the man alcohol from a backpack. The Crown says Waitokia had taken the bottles from his victim’s address.
A witness who saw Waitokia earlier in the evening, said the teenager told him he was angry at Richardson because a deal had gone wrong and he had lost money. He was going to get money out of him.
A witness on Monday told of Waitokia saying he was drugged with “blue crack” on the night of the killing. Other witnesses – who were frequent drug users themselves – had not heard of the drug, but a man later told the trial that he believed it was synthetic methamphetamine.
Updated report: Forensic pathologist Dr Martin Sage said Richardson had 14 separate blunt force injuries to his face and forehead, a broken left arm, hand bone, and little finger, and a stabbing wound on his right forehead. He had a fractured skull, broken right cheekbone and eye socket, a black eye and broken ribs.
He found a total of 39 external wounds or injuries. The hand injuries were probably caused as he tried to defend his head.
He had major injuries within the head including an acute subdural haematoma in the brain.
Richardson had died of head and brain injuries caused by multiple blunt force blows. They could have been delivered with a bottle or any other similar instrument.
Cross-examined by defence counsel Jonathan Eaton QC, Dr Sage said Richardson had not died immediately from the injuries. His final mode of death was swallowing vomit after head injuries. He would have had a chance of survival if he had been taken to hospital immediately.
The trial began on Monday with Waitokia, now aged 18, denying the charge of murder. The Crown is alleging he either intended to kill the elderly man, who would buy stolen goods off local teenagers, or was reckless about whether he would die, or caused his death in the course of a robbery. The defence says Waitokia had no intention to kill and a manslaughter verdict should be returned by the jury.
Category: News
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