Life after murder: Te Hāroto's road to redemption starts with a horn

People honk their horns as they drive past the property where Alex Latimer was murdered. Photo / Paul Taylor

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Te Hāroto is noisy with traffic.

The tiny settlement has very little else - a smattering of houses, a marae and a closed-down cafe, cut in half by the main route between Napier and Taupo.

Trucks and cars rush past, hurrying through the foothills of the Kaweka Ranges on their way between the two cities.

But for more than a year now, another sound has been added to hum.

Horns honk as people rush past a yellow house, the first you reach on the Napier side of the settlement.

It is simple way of showing respect for what took place in the early hours of September 30, 2018 when Napier man Alex Latimer was lured to the house and murdered.

It's a toot of commemoration.

Alex Latimer was killed in September 2018. Photo / Michael Schultz

The man who lives here now, Mike Watts, waves at the toots, waves as the traffic heads past, saying people presumably think he is a bit ghoulish for living there.

He says he doesn't mind the fascination with the place, as long as no one comes onto the property.

His partner had originally felt "a little weird" about moving in but he does not mind.

"My partner took a bit of getting used to it, then my daughter said to me 'oh Dad, you're in that murderer's house'."

He pointed out to her the murder itself did not take place in the house, but out the back of the property.

"To me, it's like history."

He moved in about two months ago and has already done a lot of work on the place.

It's been a big job. He said when he arrived it was a "pigsty" and he is still cleaning out items and rubbish left by the previous, infamous occupants.

He said people in the area do not chatter to anyone about September 2018.

here is not much left in Te Hāroto, the settlement is not much more than a few houses dotting the hillside. Photo / Paul Taylor

"We don't say much about what happened here ... it's gone now, over and done with."

The number of people who live in the area can be counted on two hands, between 10 and 12 at any given time, one resident says.

It did not used to be the case. A timber mill near the summit was the centre of the community until the 1960s.

When it shut down the people left.

There used to be a cafe, popular with people passing through for a quick coffee and pie, but it closed before the murder took place.

Watts said the marae is always open for people to pop in and have a cup of tea or coffee, and the residents look out for each other.

"The people come down and have coffee with me, some of the locals, and we all just yak, everyone keeps up, knows what's going on with each other, and if you have a problem you ask them."

Resident Mike Watts says the marae is always open for people to pop in, and residents look out for each other. Photo / Paul Taylor

The Community

Another resident, who did not want to be named, said while the community was shocked the murder had taken place in Te Hāroto, it perhaps had not affected them as people thought, as no one involved was local.

She said the offender who had been renting the property had not been in the area long when the murder took place.

A kaumātua had blessed the property but she said she still gets the shivers when she passes the house, and always will.

She said only people who did not know Te Hāroto would associate it with the murder.

There are also plans for the community moving forward.

A spokesperson for Ngāti Hineuru said the board of trustees is considering plans for an old schoolhouse, given as part of the treaty settlement process, with one option of reopening the two-classroom school on the table.

Trustees are also considering establishing a nursery at the site or using the house as a training and development space for Hineuru members, whānau and wider community.

The sentencing

Two men, David James Lothian and James Taylor Martin Webby, pleaded guilty to murder just before the case went to trial in September this year.

On Monday, both were sentenced to life imprisonment.

The summary of facts, a court document detailing what the pair did, makes for grim reading.

Latimer, it says, was lured to the property, beaten, had a grave dug around him and was then fatally stabbed.

At Monday's sentencing Justice Robert Dobson described the murder as brutal, and handed out what is understood to be the longest period of non-parole given in Hawke's Bay.

It means Lothian will be in prison for a minimum of 20 years, Webby, 17 years and nine months.

Lothian could have been sentenced under the three-strikes rule.

It would have meant life imprisonment with no parole and the judge had to find such a sentence "manifestly unjust" for Lothian to avoid it.

The property was the site of an extensive search before Latimer's body was found on October 6. Photo / File

Justice Dobson took into consideration Lothian's age (he is 27), and the fact his previous offence was at the lower end of violent offending which warrants a strike warning. Due to this, he avoided a life sentence without parole.

The national spokeswoman for the Sensible Sentencing Trust, Jess McVicar, grew up in the area.

"The community where I grew up was and is a peaceful, welcoming community and they are all still in shock over what took place that night."

She said compared to some sentences it was a good outcome, but said life with a minimum non-parole period is not justice.

"Lothian and Webby should have been sentenced to 20 years for every hour of torture they inflicted on Alex Latimer.

"The justice system misuses the meaning of life."

The house

As for Watts, he has plans to build a barn on the back of the property and has some renovation ideas.

He runs a few stock and is looking forward to the forestry block across the road being chopped down to let more light in.

He also has plans to sell petrol from the property, such is the number of people who stop and ask whether he has any.

Te Hāroto appears to be the point people realise they should have topped up before embarking on the notorious road.

He said he might put up a sign so people know which house to toot their respects at.

In such an isolated place, it's almost comforting.