Lyn Clarkson did not want her boy, Nicholas, to move from Rakaia - a sleepy town of 880 people - to the bright lights of Auckland.
"I had a feeling something was going to happen - just a mother's gut feeling that it was not a good place for him to be," the Mid-Canterbury woman said yesterday.
Her instinct was right. Her 23-year-old son, of Moriori descent, was beaten about the head with a length of wood after a night on the town last week and died in Auckland Hospital on Sunday.
The senseless Friday morning attack, which police believe might have been motivated by robbery, has shattered Mrs Clarkson and her husband, Fred.
"Having come from a small rural town [Rakaia is about 30 minutes south of Christchurch], we abhor the violence and crime that we see happening in New Zealand," Mr Clarkson told a media gathering.
"We fail to understand why society has dropped to such depths where we allow people of this despicable mentality to walk our streets."
His wife, fighting back tears, revealed that she had terminal heart disease. "I am dying of a terminal illness - it should be me, not my boy, we're burying."
Mrs Clarkson said her son moved to Auckland about three years ago and loved his new life, but she always worried about him.
"Every time I heard ... about a murder or beating I'd just about go mental trying to find my boy to make sure he was all right."
Mr Clarkson said his son was a gentle, non-aggressive lad who was not the type to hurt anyone. But he stood 1.93m tall and had a black belt in tae kwon do, so would have been able to defend himself if he had seen his killer coming.
"Obviously when he was attacked it came from behind ... It was obviously unexpected."
The couple said their son had travelled to Japan several times for work, before shifting to Auckland where he studied law, accounting and statistics at university for two years.
He took a year off and got a job in telemarketing.
The night he was beaten he was at the Lenin Bar on the waterfront celebrating a colleague's major sale.
Mr and Mrs Clarkson appealed for anyone with information, no matter how trivial, to contact police.
Mrs Clarkson had a message for the attacker: "All I can say to the person who did this - you've destroyed us, you've made our whole life hell."
Her husband said they were getting by with the support of their family from the Chatham Islands.
The officer in charge of the case, Detective Senior Sergeant Jim Gallagher, said a team of 25 investigators was working on the case.
He urged people to call the 0800 VIOLENCE (0800 8465 3623) hotline if they had any information. but police still needed public help to solve the crime.
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