How former teen killer William Izett’s Auckland car theft led to a possible life sentence

An Auckland-based heroin supplier whose life has been “punctuated by significant periods of imprisonment” – including convictions for the killing of an elderly stranger and the non-fatal stabbing a decade later of another stranger – is back for another lag after a bungled vehicle theft resulted in much more serious charges.

William Frederick Izett, 32, was found in possession of the stolen $64,000 Ford Ranger when police executed a search warrant at his Dairy Flat home last year. But during the search, authorities also discovered 321.8g of the illegal opioid as well as a loaded AK-47-style gun and high-power explosives often used for mining or construction.

Spent detonators were found underneath the couch cushions in the rural North Auckland home’s living room.

“You have to be deterred,” Judge David Sharp said of the relatively rare heroin charge as Izett appeared in Auckland District Court this week for sentencing. “Other people have to be deterred.”

The judge noted a letter to the court in which Izett said he is finally ready to turn his life around. He encouraged Izett to follow through on the ambition.

But a return to prison, he said, was the only realistic option.

‘No dignity in death’

At 17 years old, Izett was the oldest of three teens who violently targeted 74-year-old Wellington resident Donald Stewart outside a toilet block in Hamilton in June 2010, resulting in his death.

Their motive was to steal his 1989 Peugeot 405, which they took for a joyride before leaving it abandoned in a ditch where they had crashed it.

William Izett appears in Auckland District Court on July 18 for sentencing on charges of heroin supply and possession of an AK-47-style gun, ammunition and explosive gel. Photo / Craig Kapitan

Co-defendant Connor Rewha-Te Wara, who was 14 at the time, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 11 years after pleading guilty to murder. Izett, meanwhile, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Rewha-Te Wara had been the one who inflicted the fatal blows, Justice Patrick Keane noted when the trio appeared in the High Court at Hamilton to be sentenced together.

The teens had formed a plan to steal the Peugeot after finding it with the lights on but doors locked as the driver used the facilities.

When Stewart refused to hand over the keys after emerging from the toilet block, Rewha-Te Wara knocked him to the ground with a punch to the head. He was then dragged to an alleyway and suffered what the judge referred to as a “sustained and brutal assault”.

Donald Stewart buys petrol at a Hamilton Gull service station only hours before he was found dead in the central city. Photo / Supplied

The judge acknowledged that Izett didn’t participate in the physical attack and wouldn’t have anticipated his co-defendant’s level of violence. But that doesn’t excuse standing by passively – neither stopping the younger teen nor helping the victim.

“You left in his car, leaving him where he lay,” the judge said. “You afforded him no dignity in death. You stole his personal property and ultimately you were party to destroying it.”

By that point, he had already had a lengthy and violent record, the court noted.

Cannabis stabbing

Two years after the Hamilton sentencing, while Izett was imprisoned in Dunedin, a Corrections officer said the inmate spat in his face.

The officer reported the saliva going into his eyes, causing stinging. He then had to wait six months for blood test results.

Izett, who had been angry because his cell was not unlocked as quickly as he wanted, pleaded guilty to assault.

A decade later, in 2023, he was out of prison and living in emergency accommodation in a Hamilton motel when he was charged with wounding with intent to injure, possession of cannabis for sale and unlawful ammunition possession.

Convicted killer William Izett admitted a decade later to stabbing a man at a Hamilton motel who had asked to buy his cannabis. Image / Google

He was taking freshly cut cannabis plants to his room about 11am that day when the victim approached and asked if he could buy some.

After telling the man to leave, Izett retrieved a hammer and knife from his car and challenged the man to a fight. The scuffle, caught on CCTV, ended with the defendant inflicting two knife wounds to the other man’s torso.

‘Hooked up’

Five months after the stabbing guilty plea, the Ford Ranger went missing from Murrays Bay on Auckland’s North Shore. However, the heist was short-lived. The vehicle had a GPS tracker, which led police to Izett’s Dairy Flat home the next morning.

Police found the registration plates in a wheelie bin at the property and the keys on the kitchen table.

Social media messages later recovered by police suggested the vehicle, with plates that phonetically spelt “hooked up”, had been stolen as part of a scheme relating to the Mongols motorcycle gang, Judge Sharp noted.

William Izett appears in Auckland District Court on July 18 for sentencing on charges of heroin supply and possession of an AK-47-style gun, ammunition and explosive gel. Photo / Craig Kapitan

The heroin was found in a suitcase in the living room, divvied into snap-lock bags for distribution.

The military-style, semi-automatic weapon was wrapped in sheets and a blanket nearby. In the same room, investigators found Orica Powergel, a putty-like, high-power explosive.

Receiving such an expensive stolen vehicle carried a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. But the discovery of the potent drug, found to have 76% purity, meant he faced up to life imprisonment.

Judge Sharp described the heroin scheme as an independent commercial enterprise. There was no evidence that either defendant used the drug, with both instead addicted to methamphetamine – a much more common drug in New Zealand.

‘Capable of change’

At a jury trial earlier this year, Izett pleaded guilty to possessing the firearm and explosives, as well as receiving the stolen vehicle, but denied the heroin charge.

Conversely, co-defendant Cherish-Ann Buchanan, 33, pleaded guilty to the heroin charge but denied receiving the vehicle or being in possession of the firearm.

Jurors, however, found both guilty of the charges they denied.

“There’s no secret that Mr Izett has stood or sat where he is sitting – he’s been before the court before,” defence lawyer Kima Tuialii acknowledged at the start of the hearing this week.

Police examine the scene where Donald Stewart's body was found by a street sweeper in 2010. Photo / Christine Cornege

However, she emphasised her client’s letter to the court and asked for a sentence that wouldn’t be so crushing that he’d have trouble imagining his eventual reintegration into the community.

“He is somebody that is capable of change,” she said.

Judge Sharp sentenced Izett to seven years and six months’ imprisonment, while Buchanan was sentenced to four years and six months.

Both sentences took into account reductions for what the judge described as backgrounds marred by “tragic personal circumstances”.

“They involved things that should never have happened to them,” he said, declining to elaborate in open court.

Izett’s sentence included a three-month uplift for his significant history of prior offences. Buchanan received reductions for her previously clean record and for the hardship her imprisonment will cause for her five 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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