Devastated lover 'must have lost it'

KATE NEWTON
Friends of Steve Webby, the man believed to have killed the woman he loved and then turned the gun on himself last Saturday morning, are still at a loss to understand why.
Jimmy O'Keefe, of Hastings, who had talked to Mr Webby on Friday morning, said his friend of 40 years had been devastated when he and Annette Pollock broke up a month ago, but that morning he had stopped crying when he talked of her.
Talk had been of the future that day, with Mr Webby planning to make a concrete area at the Flaxmere home of another friend, Alan Davies, where he was to set up a campervan to live in.
But just over 12 hours later, their friend is believed to have shot himself in the head, his ex-partner already dead from her gunshot wounds, and he died in hospital not long after.
Mr Webby was cremated on Monday and a memorial service was held at Mihiroa Marae in Pakipaki yesterday, at the same time Ms Pollock's funeral was being held in Napier.
"He can't have been thinking right because he has three young kids and he would never have wanted to leave them," Mr O'Keefe said.
It wasn't unusual for Mr Webby to have the rifle in the ute, his friends said. He worked as a contractor and was also a keen hunter, fisherman and diver and loved to cook.
At his service yesterday, Mr O'Keefe said they "needed a Steve" because he had been the one who always made sure there was enough food and supplies.
"If anyone died, Steve was always the one organising the cooking - noone had to do anything," Mr O'Keefe said.
Mr Webby had been based in Hastings but had been helping friends in Ormondville and spending time in Tarawera. He had recently sat his bar manager's licence so he could help out at the Tarawera pub.
Mr Webby was a conservationist, Mr O'Keefe said, and would only shoot one deer and then pull out his camera to take photos of the rest.
"He always had the rifles in the back of the truck because he was always moving," Mr O'Keefe said. The ute was found outside the Harold Holt Ave address where the shootings happened.
Mr Webby had been back in Hawke's Bay for the weekend because Mr O'Keefe had asked for his help putting in a pool in Havelock North and he was staying with a friend on Harold Holt Ave.
Saturday's incident has both Mr O'Keefe and Mr Davies baffled, as they describe him as a sensible man.
"Everyone's just shocked because he's not like that," Mr O'Keefe said.
"He was the type who wouldn't have a beer and drive at the end of the week. He would wait until he got home and then have one.
"Something must have gone drastically wrong ... and he just lost it.
" We just wish he had told us he was hurting more than he said he was ... maybe we could have prevented this."