Moments before Matu Reid gunned down two workers at a downtown Auckland construction site, his mother says he phoned to tell her: “I love you mama, love you dada. Sorry, but there are too many haters out there. I can’t keep on doing this.”
Then, the phone went silent.
Reid - who was on home detention after a domestic violence incident - would go on to kill two men and injure 10 others at the building he was approved to work at while serving his sentence.
Reid’s mother, who didn’t want to be identified for fear of retribution against her family, said her son earlier revealed that he felt bullied on the site and that he wanted to “get rid” of the people he blamed for it.
She never imagined he would go through with the threat.
“If I’d known what he was about to do I would have tried to stop him,” she told the Herald in an exclusive interview.
The mother of eight says she still has no idea how Reid got hold of a gun.
Shortly after 7am on July 20, Reid walked into a 21-level tower at number one Queen St armed with a pump-action shotgun. Witnesses described him moving between the floors of the nearly complete office building during his attack.
Workers who thought they were evacuating because of a fire alarm told of their terror at encountering Reid on the stairwell of the nearly completed office building.
Two men - Solomona To’oto’o, 45, and Tupuga Sipiliano, 44 - were murdered during the rampage while 10 others were injured, including a police officer responding to the shooting.
After an exchange of gunfire with armed officers, Reid was found dead in the building’s lift shaft. Police later said that Reid’s fatal injuries were self-inflicted, something Reid’s mother can’t bring herself to accept.
She claims she hasn’t heard from the police since the shootings and believes authorities should have better monitored her son’s movements leading up to the murders.
“He had a bloody ankle bracelet, and the police had no idea what he was up to. How did he get a gun ... how did he manage to get it onto a train with a gun and then into the building?” she asked.
Police did not respond to questions but said “the investigation into this incident remains ongoing and those injured including the officer are recovering”.
Reid’s former employer also declined to comment while the police investigation and coronial process was underway and did not respond directly to questions.
On the morning of the shooting, Reid’s mother said she knew something was wrong when she turned on the television and saw police swarming around the building where her son worked.
“I freaked out when I saw the police at Matu’s work. I said to my husband, ‘Dad, there is someone with a gun’ ... I watched the whole thing unfolding then suddenly I heard ‘bang, bang, bang’. My heart dropped when I heard a 24-year-old guy had been shot.
“My whole world has been ripped apart. Nobody will ever understand my pain. When Matu was shot, I felt it. When he fell, I fell, and I haven’t been able to get up since. The truth is he was going through hell. But he has been set free.”
An eyewitness previously told the Herald that Reid’s attack appeared targeted.
“I can remember him yelling ‘So what you going to do to me now ... what can you do’,” said the witness.
“The way he was yelling was like he came with a purpose.
“I don’t know, but the two people he shot was like he wanted to kill those two people”.
The site of the shooting was where Reid had been approved to work while he served a five-month sentence of home detention for kicking and strangling a woman, leaving her with a broken bone in her neck.
The 24-year-old earlier had admitted charges of impeding breathing, injuring with intent, wilful damage and male assaults female. Judge Stephen Bonner’s sentencing notes say Reid was in an intimate relationship with the victim at a property where he boarded on Auckland’s North Shore.
Shortly before midnight on September 16, 2021, something said by the woman, whose name is suppressed, triggered anger in Reid, Judge Bonnar recounted.
They argued and he pushed the woman off the chair.
When she tried to speak to him, Reid verbally abused her and then threw an object at her head, hitting her in the right eye. He threatened to “take out” the woman and the rest of the family.
He then kicked her in the stomach and sent her flying backward onto the bed, at which point Reid stood over her and seized her throat for about 10 seconds. She was unable to breathe.
Reid relinquished his grip but continued to verbally abuse her before slapping and punching her.
He then said to her words to the effect of “you don’t know what I’m capable of”.
Reid grabbed a pair of scissors and pushed the handle into the woman’s side before swinging a bottle of wine at her.
He then said: “I’ve had enough, it’s time, I’m going to take you all” and stormed out of the room.
The victim has moved out of Auckland and could not be reached for comment. A relative of the victim told the Herald that Reid was a “lovely boy” but he had to leave after he “turned nasty” and tried to set the house on fire. She also denied the victim was in an intimate relationship with Reid.
“He boarded with us for a year because he had nowhere to go. She felt sorry for him and would take him out but they were never in a relationship. I felt sorry for him and believe in giving someone a second chance in life,” the woman said.
Reid’s mother says the victim was a much older woman who she believed was looking after her son.
Even after the incident and court case, she said that her son “thought highly” of the victim.
A cultural report prepared for Reid’s sentencing described a history of systemic deprivation, exposure to domestic violence and physical abuse. He described having to run away from home at an early age. Reid had previously been required to undertake anger management measures.
As a young boy, Reid had a disrupted education and was exposed to alcohol and drugs and to gangs and gang culture, the report said.
Reid was the baby of the family, his mother said.
She spoke of her distress at having to wait six days before his body was brought home by his siblings. Reid’s ashes are in a white box with a photo of him with angel wings.
“He will be buried with me and my husband. He didn’t think we loved him; he didn’t think we were enough for him. On the last day he knew well and truly I would do anything to keep him safe.”
She says they spoke at length the day before he died – and that she told him she loved him and was there for him “no matter what”.
At 11.34pm on the last night he was alive, he messaged his parents saying he loved them:
“Just letting youse know my mama and dada if something happens there was nothing that would have stopped it from happening. I would have found a way and done it anyway, so many people wished the worst on me, so I made sure they will get the worst of me, i love youse till infinity,good night, rest right, awake nice and bright full of life, every time the sun rises. i miss and you I love youse heaps.”
He had earlier been locked up for outrageously dangerous driving. It was caught on video.
