Anger at Raurimu killer living in community

A victim is furious that of one of New Zealand's worst mass murderers has been released from psychiatric care and is living freely in the Wellington area.

Stephen Anderson went on a drug-fuelled shooting rampage at his family's lodge at Raurimu in the central North Island on February 8. 1997.

He killed six people, including his father.

A paranoid schizophrenic, he was later found not guilty of the murders by reason of insanity and locked up in full-time psychiatric care.

Anderson, 37, is now living in Upper Hutt, the Sunday News reported today.

His mother, Helen told the paper her son was now "getting on with his life" and "is not newsworthy".

Mental Health director Dr David Chaplow said Anderson's treatment was continuing and getting him back into the community under strict release conditions would help rehabilitate him.

But Isabel McCarty, shot in the back by Anderson, who also killed her husband Anthony, is outraged.

"It is another example of New Zealand not punishing people who do something wrong," she said.

"There has been no apology, remorse, nothing from him whatsoever. And I have known him since he was about three or four years old. So it is not as though he doesn't know the family."

She said she and other victims of the massacre and their families had previously been informed they would not be formally notified of his release.

"We were told we weren't allowed to know anything because he was found guilty on the grounds of insanity," she said.

At the time of the killings, Anderson was under the care of Capital and Coast's community mental health team in Wellington after being diagnosed two years earlier as a paranoid schizophrenic.

He shot dead his 60-year-old father Neville, Anthony McCarty, 63, Stephen Hanson, 38, John Matthews, 28, Andrea Brander, 52, and Hendrick (Henk) Van de Wetering, 51. He also wounded four others, including Ms McCarty.

Another of Stephen Anderson's victims, Eve Spencer, shot in the elbow by him before diving into bushes to escape, said she bore him no ill will.

"There really is nothing to say. It is all in the past now. It was bad at the time especially for the people he killed, their wives and partners.

"But we just try not to think about it now. We have moved on."

Ms Spencer's husband, Raymond, was shot in the side of the head by Anderson before he and his wife were able to flee to safety.

- NZPA