A homicide investigation has been launched after a man was found dead at a Flat Bush address from which gunshots had earlier been heard. Video / Hayden Woodward
With Andrew Lamositele-Brown’s longtime friend dead in the hallway, police surrounding his South Auckland home and his terrified partner and children barricaded upstairs, a police negotiator asked him a simple question: What’s going on in there?
“What’s really going on is he f***ed with the wrong c**t,” the patched HellsAngels member responded that Boxing Day morning nearly two years ago, allegedly referring to shooting victim and fellow Hells Angels member Petau Petau.
That was the scene prosecutors put to jurors today as the murder trial began in the High Court at Auckland for Lamositele-Brown, who also goes by the name Andrew Tovia Fepuleai.
His lawyers have suggested the shooting was an accident.
Brown surrendered to police after walking out of the garage of his Flat Bush home around 8am on December 26, 2021. But Crown prosecutor Chris Howard told jurors today the lead-up to the shooting happened on Christmas Day, when the defendant began over-indulging in Hennessy Cognac and other alcohol at home while his wife and children went to visit relatives.
When the family returned around 10pm, Lamositele-Brown’s partner was concerned about how much he’d had to drink “and the effect it was having on him”, Howard noted in his opening address.
At 12.35am, Petau texted him, “Merry Christmas, my uso,” and Lamositele-Brown called him just minutes later, records indicate. Witnesses would later tell police they heard the other man’s loud Harley-Davidson motorcycle arriving at the cul-de-sac around 1am.
By 1.13am, the first of multiple witnesses were calling 111 to report a disturbance.
Prosecutors said Lamositele-Brown shot Petau in the chest, piercing his heart and left lung, with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol - most likely as Petau sat at the dining room table. Hearing the gunshot, the defendant’s wife ran downstairs from the bedroom, finding Petau facedown and unmoving in the hallway, where prosecutors said he had stumbled before dying.
Andrew Lamositele-Brown, otherwisw known as Andrew Tovia Fepuleai, is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of murdering fellow Hells Angels member Petau Petau on Boxing Day 2021. Photo / Michael Craig
“She let out a loud scream,” Howard said, explaining that the woman then saw the gun and confronted the defendant as his two oldest daughters tried in vain to help Petau. “She tried to disarm him. The two struggled.”
But when Lamositele-Brown then pointed the gun at his partner, she and her daughters ran upstairs - barricading themselves in a bedroom and calling police, jurors were told.
Within two minutes of the first 111 call, the defendant fired again, authorities allege. Police arrived around 1.35am and a third shot was heard 20 minutes later, Howard said.
Prosecutors noted two times in which police negotiators asked Lamositele-Brown via phone what was going on - at around 3.50am and again at 5.36am. The first answer was the one involving Petau, prosecutors said. The second time, he allegedly responded: “Ask my missus.” During that time, police were able to gain entry to the house through the bedroom window and quietly extract the defendant’s family, authorities said.
After his arrest, nearly seven hours after the first 111 call, police found the still-loaded pistol, 41 live bullets scattered throughout the home and three bullet holes in the walls of the dining room and the hallway.
Crown prosecutor Chris Howard addresses the judge during the murder trial of Andrew Lamositele-Brown in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
For Lamositele-Brown to be found guilty of murder, prosecutors will have to prove he had “murderous intent” - meaning he either intentionally killed his friend or he intended to cause injury and intentionally took the risk of causing death.
“I anticipate murderous intent will be a big issue in this trial,” Howard predicted, suggesting that the evidence points to that conclusion. “Andrew Lamositele-Brown took a loaded semi-automatic pistol and shot it in anger at close range at Petau Petau, killing him.”
As is always the case, defence lawyers Vivienne Feyen and Mark Edgar had an opportunity to address the jury with a much shorter statement, but they will be given an opportunity to expand upon their thoughts in an optional address after the Crown finishes presenting evidence.
There is a large gulf between the murder plot alleged by prosecutors and what really happened - an accident, Feyen said.
She emphasised that the trial is not about the Hells Angels but about two men who were close friends and “about the accidental discharge of a pistol in a family home”.
Justice Sally Fitzgerald is overseeing the murder trial of Andrew Lamositele-Brown in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig
“It’s about the circumstances in which that gun went off in the dining room that morning, which resulted in the death of a friend,” she said.
Although the defence did not mention it in their opening statement, prosecutors alluded to the specific model of pistol the defendant had that morning. There have been “some issues overseas” in which there were “some instances of the model going off when it’s been dropped”, Howard acknowledged, adding that a police armourer was tasked with testing the weapon confiscated by police that day to see if it had any similar defect.
Despite repeatedly tapping, dropping and otherwise stress-testing the gun, it only fired when the trigger was pulled, jurors were told.
Testimony is expected to continue when the trial resumes tomorrow before Justice Sally Fitzgerald and the jury.
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.
