An Auckland teen who appeared to methodically shoot four other young men at the culmination of a lengthy feud – killing one – has been given a somewhat rare non-life sentence for murder.
Grey Lynn resident Kayden Stanaway, now 20, claimed he fired in self-defence in September 2024 when 18-year-old Maxwel-Dee Repia showed up across the street from Stanaway’s home with four others.
The two enemies had been involved in numerous violent encounters that year, and just that night Repia had threatened to kidnap the defendant’s father, court documents state. Repia and others had also thrown rocks at the defendant’s house earlier that day, smashing a window.
But messaging recovered by police also indicates Repia had arrived that night wanting a one-on-one fight without guns. He was gunned down anyway, dying in the street.
Although the judge, along with prosecutors, accepted that Stanaway was fearful for his safety, it was also agreed by all sides that his firing of the weapon was unreasonable and therefore constituted reckless murder.
“This involved recklessness at the very highest level,” Justice Graham Lang said today as Stanaway appeared in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing.
He ordered a finite sentence of 16 years’ imprisonment, with a stipulation that he serve at least half of that before he can begin to apply for parole.
For the vast majority of murder convictions in New Zealand, defendants are ordered to serve a life sentence with a minimum term of imprisonment of at least 10 years. A life term means that even after release, the defendant is always on parole and can be called back to prison at any time.
But this was one of the exceptions to the rule, Justice Lang said today, noting that prosecutors agreed such an outcome would be “manifestly excessive”.
Nevertheless, the judge added, the shooting “has had catastrophic consequences for his whanau and friends” and must be denounced.
A feud had started between Repia’s group and Stanaway earlier that year after the defendant started dating an ex-girlfriend of someone in the other group, according to the official account outlined in court documents.
Around that period, Repia tried to punch the defendant through a car window, the agreed facts state. The two teens squared off on that occasion but didn’t end up fighting.
The next documented confrontation happened in late February that year, when a 13-year-old friend of the defendant was allegedly beaten up and robbed by Repia and his associates. Stanaway and his associates retaliated by doing the same to one of Repia’s friends.
Stanaway claimed to authorities that on St Patrick’s Day that year, Repia and some others showed up at his home, initially threatening to shoot his 13-year-old sister. When Stanaway and his father confronted the group, armed with a hammer and a crowbar, Stanaway claimed that Repia again escalated the situation.
“Mr Stanaway’s account is that Mr Repia pulled out the apparent firearm and pointed it at [the defendant’s father’s] head, pulling the trigger,” court documents state. “The gun made a clicking sound but no bullets were released.”
Police, however, were never called.
Two weeks later, the defendant claimed, Repia and his associates showed up at the home around 1am “armed with a crowbar and ready for a fight”. They allegedly smashed windows to the house and to Stanaway’s car, tagging it with spray paint.
“Mr Repia and others attempted to enter the house through the front door; however, Mr Stanaway, his father and his cousin were able to hold the door closed and prevent their entry,” court documents state.
Police were later called to report the damage. A short time later, a fragile truce between the two groups was reached.
But animosity reignited four-and-a-half months later, in mid-August, when Repia and his associates allegedly forced their way into Stanaway’s family home and confronted his father and 17-year-old sister. Stanaway was not home, but the group demanded the keys to his new motorbike, the agreed facts state.
The intruders were holding bottles as weapons, Stanaway’s father would later recount. As they left the house, Stanaway’s sister called the police. The defendant’s father called him.
“Mr Stanaway raced home and saw Mr Repia and his associates out on the street near his house,” court documents state. “He witnessed one of the associates assault his friend with a bottle to the head while his friend was on the ground.
“While they were assaulting his friend on the ground, Mr Stanaway drove his car at members of Mr Repia’s group, hitting at least one of them with his car. He then circled back around to where his friend was on the ground, in an attempt to block him from a further attack.
“This continued until the police arrived.”
By August 28, one week before the shooting, Stanaway was sending threats to Repia’s group via social media messages.
“Tell your big homie Max to pull up got a clip with his name on it,” he wrote in one message, referring to ammunition.
A friend of Repia’s, who would later be shot in the face, ended the exchange by sending a photo of himself holding a gun.
Earlier on the day of the shooting, Repia and his mates had filmed themselves chasing Stanaway in his car after randomly coming across him on the road.
Repia and some of the others who would later be shot then went to Stanaway’s home and threw the rocks, documents state. Stanaway’s father called police around 4.22pm, followed by a call to his son.
As the evening progressed, Stanaway stood outside his home with a rottweiler dog and a group of friends who had arrived for his brother’s 14th birthday party.
Stanaway at one point called Repia. In a follow-up message, he wrote: “Or I’ll kidnap your dad.”
At 6.01pm, Repia said he was headed to the house.
“Wait there,” he wrote. “If ur not there then im gna Kidnap ur dad.”
Repia said he wanted “just 1on1s” so it wouldn’t cause as much of a scene. “No fanas,” the murder victim said, using Samoan slang for guns.
Repia and four others parked near the Grey Lynn house about 6.45pm.
“As Mr Repia’s group approached the defendants’ group, a heated verbal exchange ensued that was escalating,” the summary of facts states. “Mr Stanaway alleges that two of Mr Repia’s associates threatened to shoot the rottweiler belonging to Mr Stanaway’s associate.”
Stanaway remained next to the open door of a white Mazda parked outside his home.
“Mr Stanaway, believing that at least one of the complainants had a firearm in their hands, reached into the Mazda vehicle and armed himself with a long-barreled .22 calibre rifle,” court documents state.
He “adopted a standing firing stance by resting his elbows on the roof of the Mazda” and took aim at the group, firing four shots in quick succession.
Repia and his friends scattered as the shots were fired, but he died at the scene from a single gunshot wound to the chest. One of the survivors was put in a medically induced coma and underwent multiple surgeries as a result of a bullet that punctured his nose and travelled into his neck, near his spine. Another was shot in the chin, and a third survivor was treated for a chest wound.
They were between the ages of 19 and 20.
In a series of emotional victim impact statements read aloud by prosecutors today, members of Repia’s family emphasised that he was more than just the person portrayed in the media based on the summary of facts.
“My son mattered,” Repia’s mum said. “He is my son and he deserved dignity and respect.”
She and several of Repia’s aunts described someone who was family-oriented, protective of his siblings and cousins and who was always respectful in their presence.
“He had a large and colourful life,” his mother said. “... He did everything at 100%.”
Aunts remembered a young man who was always willing to help with chores and “brought a warmth” to family gatherings. He had a “contagious, goofy laugh” and an ability to make his loved ones laugh for hours with his silly jokes.
In the months prior to his death, he had talked about wanting to change his path and had recently started attending church, one aunt pointed out.
“Whatever [the] agreement might have been, the result should never have been the loss of a life,” she said.
Another aunt emphasised: “Although it may seem to some in society he was a criminal or a bully, he was beyond what you might read.”
She expressed hope that Stanaway uses his time in prison to reflect on his actions and is eventually able to forgive himself. He took a life, but also destroyed his own, it was acknowledged.
Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney acknowledged that the background between Repia and Stanaway was important for context. But that doesn’t take away from the fact it was a “brutal and thoughtless” shooting, she said.
“In no way does that background justify what Kayden Stanaway did,” she said.
There was an element of premeditation in having the gun at his side before the group arrived, she suggested.
But his young age at the time, combined with his guilty pleas and difficult background mitigated the sentence to the point where life imprisonment wasn’t called for, she said. She argued for an end sentence of between 15 and 17 years’ imprisonment.
Defence lawyer Jasper Rhodes said his client accepted, through his guilty pleas, that his actions that night were unacceptable and unjustified.
He pointed to a psychological report that found Stanaway was likely to have fired out of an incorrect threat assessment caused in part by “PTSD due to the ongoing threats to his family”.
“He was under the genuine belief that the other group had their own firearms and, in theory, were about to use them,” Rhodes said.
The defence sought an end sentence of 14 years.
In settling instead on 16 years, Justice Lang noted that the crime needed to be denounced given it wouldn’t be a life sentence.
He noted that Stanaway had been sentenced in April and again in July 2024 – just months before the shooting – for firearms-related charges.
The ongoing feud “contributed to the perception you were in mortal danger” but there was no evidence that was ever the case, he said.
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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