The Star: January 18, 2024

The Star Thursday January 18 2024
4
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Grieving husband ‘forgotten’
Eighteen months after
his wife was murdered
by a violent mental
health patient on
community leave as
she walked home from
work, Nemani Tunidau
has heard nothing
from the health
board responsible
for her killer’s care.
Sam Sherwood reports
NEMANI TUNIDAU sits in
the living room of his Sockburn
home about a 10-minute walk
from where he had lived with his
wife, Laisa Waka Tunidau.
He vividly recalls dropping her
off at work and saying goodbye
for the last time on June 25, 2022,
before he drove to Waimate for a
day trip.
Laisa was on her way home
that afternoon when she was
murdered by a stranger, Zakariye
Mohamed Hussein.
The killer was an inpatient at
Hillmorton Hospital and had
10 years earlier been jailed for a
stabbing rampage, nearly killing
a man.
Following Laisa’s murder, both
Te Whatu Ora and the Ministry
of Health announced reviews
– one into Hussein’s care and
the other into the secure unit at
Hillmorton.
Eighteen months on, Tunidau
said he’d received no correspondence
from either agency.
“Nothing. Not one word.”
He feels his family has been
“forgotten”.
“I feel helpless,” he says.
“I want to ask them why in
the first place did they release
this guy out? They haven’t done
anything. They haven’t come and
said sorry for what has happened,
nothing.”
Hussein was granted community
leave from the hospital
about 2.30pm on June 25, 2022.
He then took a bus to Sockburn
and started walking to his family
home.
On the way he became angry
about some issues arising at the
TRAGIC: Eparama Tunidau flanked by his parents Nemani and Laisa Waka Tunidau before Laisa was murdered by
Zakariye Hussein on June 25, 2022. Right – A member of the public photographed Hussein during his frightening knife
rampage across Christchurch in 2012.
hospital. Earlier that day he was
frustrated with hospital staff, in
particular, because they removed
staples from a newspaper supplement
advertising real estate
that he had been examining and
circling properties he was going
to purchase.
He believed God was going to
give him money so he could buy
houses and marry staff. While
walking to his family home he
saw a man mowing his lawns
and decided to stab him. At his
family’s house, he took a steak
knife from the kitchen drawer
and put it in his pocket.
Once he went outside towards
his intended victim he saw
two men washing a car and
considered stabbing them.
However, he thought it was
too close to home and did not
want his own family to witness
anything. As he walked down
Cheyenne St, he saw a woman
walking. He took out the knife
and stabbed Laisa repeatedly as
she tried to protect herself.
He then threw away the knife
and walked away from the scene.
Said Tunidau: “If they kept
that guy on the facility nothing
would’ve happened. They should
be the ones who get charged . . .
they’re the ones whose responsibility
this is. They let him out.”
Tunidau pauses to compose
himself as tears begin to fall
when he talks about the moment
he received a text from his son
asking him to “please pray for
mum”.
The 11-year-old had heard the
sirens and seen emergency services
arrive, unaware it was his
mother who lay injured.
A police officer then knocked
on the door and spoke with him.
A relative was arranged to pick
him up and take him to their
address. He asked him what
happened, and was told his mum
was hurt and was on her way to
the hospital.
Tunidau had to break the news
that evening to the little boy that
his mum was dead. He then had
to tell their other three children.
Hussein was jailed for life, with
a minimum non-parole period
of at least 13 years in September
2022 after pleading guilty to
murder.
He also pleaded guilty to injuring
a nurse with a pen several
months before the killing.
In the days after Laisa’s murder
then Canterbury District Health
Board chief executive Peter
Bramley said a serious event
review would look into the care
Hussein was provided.
“I can assure the public that if
there are recommendations for
changes to be made as a result of
our own, or any external review,
these will be actioned.”
However, 18 months on,
Tunidau has heard nothing from
anyone at Te Whatu Ora, or the
Ministry of Health.
“I feel helpless. I’m in a foreign
land, if I was in Fiji I could just
go to every department,” he says.
“Everybody is silent, nobody is
talking.”
He also feels “forgotten”.
“They just forgot about me,
about what has happened. He’s
in jail, she’s dead, and the family
is struggling.”
The unanswered questions are
always in the back of his mind,
often making him angry as he
asks himself why it has taken so
long.
“If they kept that guy on
the facility nothing would’ve
happened. They should be the
ones who get charged . . . they’re
the ones whose responsibility
this is. They let him out.”
Te Whatu Ora Waitaha group
director of operations Jo Gibbs
said in a statement to the Herald
on Sunday she wanted to express
her condolences to Tunidau for
his loss and the “continuing
delays he has experienced”
waiting to hear more about what
happened.
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