Te Waiariki Grace fatally stabbed Mongrel Mob partner as she tried to protect herself

RNZ News

9 hours ago

By Belinda Feek, Open Justice multimedia journalist of
Te Reo Wickliffe-Heta, 24, of Hamilton, was found dead in a Hamilton driveway on 30 December 2023.
Photo:
Open Justice / NZME
Warning: This story discusses graphic details of domestic violence.
The mother of a gang member fatally stabbed by his partner during a fight at her house said the knock at the door from police that day will be forever etched in her mind.
Te Waiariki Te Uaahiahi Grace
stabbed her Mongrel Mob gang member partner
, Te Reo Wickliffe-Heta, in the chest during a fight after he turned up to her home in a "highly agitated state" in 2023.
He ran off down the street before collapsing and dying.
Grace has
had name suppression
since first appearing in court in January 2024.
The 25-year-old was sentenced on a charge of manslaughter in the High Court at Hamilton in December last year, when Justice Grant Powell agreed to extend her suppression for a further six months.
That suppression has now lapsed, meaning she can now be named and NZME can reveal what happened at her sentencing for the first time.
Wickliffe-Heta's mother, Tina, spoke at Grace's sentencing about the heartbreak she continues to endure without her 24-year-old son.
"The day that I woke up to the police officers knocking at my door is a day I will never forget," she told the court.
"I knew from the moment I saw them that it was bad news."
Being told of his death, she then felt "the most pain I have ever felt in my life".
"And now it constantly feels like I lost a piece of my heart to find out the person who took my son was his partner.
"I feel so much anger that I don't know what to do with it most days.
"He was taken from me ... in an incident that could have been avoided."
Despite her son's life choices, she said he was "respected by many and he really loved Te Waiariki".
"I feel sad that my son has been made to look like a monster. He's the one who is not here today."
At that stage, she said she still couldn't forgive Grace for what she had done.
Wickliffe-Heta was celebrating his birthday with friends and family in Hamilton when he died on 29 December 2023.
Grace was also there, and the pair began fighting, verbally, before they started pushing each other.
She decided to head home and leave and was picked up by relatives.
About 20 minutes later, Wickliffe-Heta arrived in a "highly agitated state" and began banging on the back door so loudly she eventually opened it because she was worried he would break a window.
Grace messaged a relative on social media to let her know he'd arrived, before he went into the room and dragged her from a table, and onto the ground.
As she yelled out for help, Wickliffe-Heta repeatedly hit her, and Grace hit him back.
Te Reo Wickliffe-Heta, 24, of Hamilton, was found dead in a Hamilton driveway on 30 December 2023.
Photo:
Open Justice / NZME
Wickliffe-Heta hit her with a metal chair, then got on top of her and started strangling her, but she was able to squeeze his testicles and get away.
As Grace's relatives headed to her house, telling her to "keep him there" and "I am coming", she ran outside, but he grabbed her by the leg to stop her, then pulled her hair and dragged her to the front doorstep.
She managed to break free and went into the house, and armed herself with two large kitchen knives.
The pair began yelling at each other, and Wickliffe-Heta moved closer as Grace turned and went inside.
He grabbed her by the shoulder, and during the scuffle that followed, she stabbed Wickliffe-Heta once, in an upward motion, with one of the knives piercing his chest, slicing his heart and liver, causing massive internal bleeding.
Wickliffe-Heta ran outside to the letterbox, and Grace followed him, still holding the knives as the argument continued.
He then walked away, crossing the road, just as the woman's relatives turned up and all three chased after him.
Wickliffe-Heta went down a driveway and over a fence before falling and becoming unconscious.
Grace and her relatives went back to her house, and the knives were placed under the front passenger seat of their car.
They left but were stopped by police, and the knives, one of which had blood on it, were found.
Wickliffe-Heta was later found by a member of the public, having died sometime earlier.
Officers dealing with Grace that evening and the following day noticed she had bruising to her face and was uncomfortable while walking.
Crown solicitor Jacinda Hamilton acknowledged that it was Wickliffe-Heta who went to Grace's home and became violent that night; however, she had been able to remove herself twice before fatally stabbing him.
"She had the opportunity to close the door, and she didn't take it."
Justice Powell said complicating the sentencing was the brain injury Grace suffered in a car crash two months before the incident and the effect that had on her normal responses.
Hamilton didn't take issue with an expert report prepared about that, but reiterated the "devastating loss" his whānau had suffered.
His whānau had not felt any remorse from Grace, she said.
Grace's counsel, Gerard Walsh, said "words can seem very empty" at times, but reiterated that her remorse was genuine.
Walsh said the situation that night wasn't one where Grace had many choices.
"He kept coming," he said.
"Miss Grace was being beaten that night, and I don't put it any other way."
The stabbing was self-defence, with Wickliffe-Heta showing persistent aggression in a scuffle that he initiated.
In pushing for a home detention sentence, he said Grace had no criminal history and qualified for a discount for youth, her guilty plea, 10 months on electronically-monitored bail, and various reports.
Justice Powell explained how the pair met when they were both 14.
"There's no doubt that your relationship was volatile, and arguments and physical assaults were not unusual, particularly when drinking," he said.
The toxicity was also apparent to whānau of the pair, with Grace's father having tried to get her to move to Whakatāne.
The violence began in the second year of their relationship, and it increased in their final three years together.
At the time of his death, Wickliffe-Heta was on bail on a charge of attempting to strangle her.
The judge accepted that for much of the night, Wickliffe-Heta was the aggressor, and Grace tried to protect herself.
As for her crash injuries, she had left the hospital under pressure from Wickliffe-Heta before getting any treatment and hadn't received any ongoing treatment for her injuries.
"I accept from the doctor that you would not only have received heightened pain when assaulted but also a heightened sense of vulnerability."
Grace was assessed as being at a low risk of reoffending and harm to others, so he agreed to commute the 20-month jail term to 10 months' home detention.
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
This story originally appeared in the
New Zealand Herald.