WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT
An Auckland man who stabbed a woman about 20 times in front of a crowd of fellow bus passengers had a history of paranoia and delusions.
But Kael Austin Leona, 38, had also developed a methamphetamine habit – described by a psychologist as “quite substantial, at the extreme end” – that prosecutors argued was the root cause of the October 2024 murder of Bernice Louise Marychurch.
Both views had merit, Justice Layne Harvey said today as Leona was sentenced in the High Court at Auckland to life imprisonment.
“You were relentless as she attempted to evade you and protect herself,” he said. “The terror Ms Marychurch must have felt during that attack cannot be understated.”
But he denied the Crown’s request to impose a 17-year minimum term of imprisonment.
Partly because of his mental illness, Leona will instead have to wait 12 years before he can begin to apply for parole.
Leona and Marychurch had met for the first time outside a Woolworths grocery store in Onehunga about 8.15am on October 23, 2024 – roughly six hours before the killing.
They boarded a bus together to Panmure, where they both went looking to purchase methamphetamine. They then separated before seeing each other again at the Panmure Bus Station that afternoon.
Both boarded the same Auckland Transport bus at 2.03pm, with Marychurch sitting down in the left rear corner of the bus and Leona following her, taking a seat in the right rear corner.
“During the bus ride, Mr Leona behaved in an agitated manner; continually rocking backwards and forwards, from left to right, and at times attempted to engage Ms Marychurch in conversation,” court documents state.
“For the majority of the ride, Ms Marychurch had her headphones on and was using her phone and did not respond to Mr Leona’s attempts to engage with her.”
The bus was driving along Church St, Onehunga, with eight other passengers on the bus, when Leona pulled a knife from his bag and slid across the seat to the victim.
“He stood up and knelt his left leg on the seat and began to stab Ms Marychurch in her upper body,” the agreed facts state, explaining he then pulled the victim on to her side and stabbed her in the back before dragging her to his seat – continuing to stab in the meanwhile.
The attack continued as she fell to the floor of the bus. Leona slashed at her face and stabbed her numerous times in her stomach and torso.
“Passengers yelled at the bus driver to stop and open the doors, which he did,” documents state.
Some of the passengers fled in fear.
“At one point, Ms Marychurch attempted to defend herself by raising her knee to protect her body but Mr Leona pushed her knee aside and drove the knife into her stomach,” according to the agreed facts.
By the time Leona “finally stopped”, he had inflicted about 20 stab wounds – several of which involved him twisting the knife to inflict more lethal injuries. He then picked up his bag, “stepping over Ms Marychurch’s prone body”, and ran from the bus.
Once off the bus, he turned his focus to another passenger, following him for about 100m before the stranger was able to evade him.
Later that evening, after fleeing the scene, he forced his way into the home of a family friend and attacked her. He threatened to kill her but others intervened.
He turned himself in the next day, after again riding through the city on various buses.
The judge described Marychurch as “unarmed and unsuspecting” at the time of the attack.
“She was alone and effectively trapped in the back of a bus,” he said.
Family members said during a series of emotional victim impact statements that the trauma of Marychurch’s death has been exacerbated by knowing the violent way in which she died.
Mark Hini, her cousin, recounted how loved ones got on to the same bus where she was killed after her funeral to get a better sense of her last moments.
“I saw with my own eyes her blood stains still embedded in the chairs,” the pastor said, describing the death as having “disturbed” his soul.
“He has spilt our bloodline and left it on the seats of the public transport bus, and on his hands.”
Knowing she was alone and scared on the bus, with no one she loved around her, has caused ongoing distress, Marychurch’s adult children agreed through tears.
Leona, who has penned a letter of apology to the family, lowered his face into his hands and appeared to wipe away tears as the family addressed the court.
Larna Marychurch described her sister as caring, kind, funny and full of life.
“Her smile would lift anyone’s spirit,” she said, describing the victim as having had a way of “making everyone feel welcomed, safe and loved”.
It was a sentiment shared by the victim’s daughter, Joan Marychurch, who recalled her mum’s “bubbly personality”.
“You could hear her laugh from a mile away – literally,” she said.
She and her siblings described an ongoing phobia of buses as thoughts of the attack linger in their minds a year and a half later.
“People hear stories like this and move on with their lives, but I can never move on from this,” she said. “These thoughts torture me daily.
“My mum did not deserve this. Nothing about this loss seems fair.”
Sometime after his arrest, Leona said he attacked Bernice Marychurch after developing a conviction she was spying on him on behalf of a group that aimed to kill him.
But he did not feel he was in immediate danger when he lashed out, he also said.
Prosecutor Fiona Culliney and Wiremu Te Hiko argued the brutality, cruelty and callousness shown by the defendant during the attack qualified him for Section 104 of the Sentencing Act, which allows a judge to impose a 17-year minimum term of imprisonment.
Defence lawyer Jo Scott sought the lowest possible minimum term for murder: 10 years.
Justice Harvey agreed the crime fitted the criteria of Section 104, but he also agreed Leona’s underlying mental illness meant a 17-year minimum would be manifestly excessive.
At the heart of the prosecution’s argument was that Leona’s mental health should not be a mitigating factor because it was caused or exacerbated by methamphetamine-induced psychosis.
But while Leona has had no formal diagnoses of mental illness in the past, it appears he first started suffering persecutory delusions in his late teens, well before he started using meth, the defence countered. They also pointed to his family history of mental health issues.
The judge said a 14-year starting point would still acknowledge the brutality of the crime while also taking into consideration the role mental health played. He then increased the sentence by eight months for the strangulation charge involving Leona’s family friend.
Discounts were factored for remorse, his guilty pleas, addiction and background issues, as well as the effects imprisonment will have on his children.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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