Maia Rongonui was sentenced in the Wellington District Court today. Photo / Hazel Osborne
A man who went on an armed kidnapping rampage through a quiet rural community has been jailed for nearly a decade.
Victims narrowly avoided being shot and some had to jump from a second-storey balcony to escape Maia Crawford Rongonui after he blasted a hole through their front door.
The 33-year-old’s “erratic” offending spanned multiple Waikanae properties and involved kidnapping or trying to kidnap four people over a wild 45 minutes on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning in October 2021.
Rongonui appeared in the Wellington District Court today for sentencing, having pleaded guilty to a string of offences, including aggravated robbery, discharging a firearm, using a firearm against police, and kidnapping, among others.
Judge Bruce Davidson sentenced Rongonui to nine-and-a-half years imprisonment, stating that despite his difficult past, the sentence was appropriate for public safety.
All of his victims were strangers to him, the summary of facts said.
“To the victims, I have taken the time to reflect over my actions and I am deeply sorry for hurting you the way I did,” Rongonui said in court.
“I’ve made some bad choices in my life but I’m not a bad person... If I could take it back I would.”
The whirlwind kidnapping and burglary spree began at 7.30am when Rongonui showed up to a semi-rural home on Hadfield Rd and let himself into the unlocked house.
He went into the victims’ bedroom holding a stolen semi-automatic shotgun, pointed the gun at the male victim and said “give me your money or I’ll shoot you”.
Rongonui continued making demands and acting “unpredictable and erratic”, according to the summary of facts.
He stole both victims’ cellphones, took their car keys, and told the male victim “you’re going to need to come with me”.
Rongonui made the victim get into his own Toyota Prius, pointing the gun at his face. “The complainant pushed it away and said ‘put the bloody gun down’.
Rongonui then said “this isn’t going to work”, and made the victim get out of the car and walk alongside the car as he went down the driveway, before suddenly speeding away.
Two police officers in a marked vehicle saw Rongonui swerving slowly on the road and tried to stop him, but had to retreat when Rongonui pointed the gun at them.
He drove away through farmland and abandoned the car after getting stuck in a paddock. He made his way on foot to Huia St.
About 7.50am, another victim saw Rongonui walking across his property with the gun and called out several times “what are you doing on my lawn with a gun?” Rongonui said he was “just cutting through” but after further questions he turned towards the victim with the gun raised.
Rongonui then continued on, climbing the fence into a neighbouring property, despite the victim’s challenges. The victim then went inside to call police and Rongonui, hearing the phone call, fired a single shot in the victim’s direction, hitting a large tree.
Rongonui stole items from one property before moving onto the next, and knocking on the next victim’s door. He immediately pointed the gun at the victim and demanded his keys.
“Fearing for his life, the complainant shut the door and locked it,” the summary said.
His wife and 16-year-old daughter were also in the house, and were alerted by the noise. The victim told them to call police.
Rongonui looked through a window beside the door and pointed the gun at the victim.
“The complainant quickly stepped to the left and took cover behind the door to get out of the defendant’s line of sight. As he stepped, the defendant discharged the firearm.”
The shot narrowly missed the victim.
Rongonui again demanded keys, which the victim threw to him.
Rongonui said “you’re coming with me”, but fearing for his life, the victim said “no”. Rongonui left in the victim’s Toyota Vitz.
Meanwhile, the victim’s wife and daughter jumped from a two-storey balcony at the back of the house to escape and, together with the victim, ran away from the house.
Rongonui drove away, eventually coming across a cyclist on Huia St about 8.15am. He put the window down and drove alongside her, pointing the gun at her out the window.
The woman told him to put the gun down, and he lowered it below the window so she could no longer see the end of the barrel. He told her he had just been hunting.
The woman started turning into a driveway but Rongonui told her to continue along the road, saying “I won’t shoot you”. She and Rongonui continued on, passing another victim, who was running along Huia St.
As Rongonui drove, he spotted a police roadblock ahead. He stopped the car and pointed the gun at police, then turned the gun towards the runner as she passed the car, telling her to get in.
The woman got into the car. He pointed the gun at her and told her he was going to shoot her. She pushed the barrel of the gun away with her hand.
“The defendant was acting in an unpredictable and erratic manner and went from panicking, saying ‘sorry’, ‘I’m scared’ and “I’m not going to shoot you’, to very aggressive, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you.’”
He started reversing down the road, pushing the gun into the victim’s thigh. Rongonui then turned the car around, and continued driving away from police.
He told the victim to take the wheel, at which point she seized the opportunity to steer it into a bush, bringing the car to a stop. Rongonui dove into the back seat but continued pointing the gun at the woman, with his finger on the trigger.
The victim continued pushing the barrel away from herself, as Rongonui claimed “they’re going to shoot me”, in reference to the police officers.
The victim asked if he wanted her to get out of the car with him, to which he said “yes”. She was able to get out of the car, but he stayed inside and was arrested with the help of police dogs.
“When spoken to by police, the defendant commented that he should have taken the shot. He did not elaborate on what he meant by this and did not provide any further comment.”
The bizarre and frightening incident was punctuated with multiple other convictions for unrelated thefts, burglaries, driving offences, and dishonesty matters.
The offending included petrol drive-offs, thefts from lockers and cars, dangerous driving while escaping police, and using stolen bank cards.
His lawyer Phyllis Strachan said her client was drug-free and hoped Rongonui could come out of his sentence to live a meaningful life, after experiencing trauma in earlier years.
Rongonui told the court at he was using drugs to block out his emotions, and he was ready to undertake treatment for a better life.
Restorative justice showed his victims he was “not the monster that appeared in their lives that day”, Judge Davidson said.
“Your offending however overall is so serious and the reports about you indicating that you are so dangerous that in the end, your personal circumstances must yield to public safety.”
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice, and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.
Hazel Osborne is an Open Justice reporter for NZME and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. She joined the Open Justice team at the beginning of 2022, previously working in Whakatāne as a court and crime reporter in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
Glen Wright continues to deny the offending and claims the victims conspired against him.