Dimetrius Pairama, 17, was found dead at a property in Mangere in July 2018. Photo / Supplied
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
“Um, I saw a dead body,” the child said.
Those were the first words the young witness told a detective as she was filmed inside a South Auckland police interview room - her head resting in her hand as she slumped in a chair - that July 2018 afternoon, two days after Dimetrius “Precious” Pairama, 17, was found dead inside a rusty steel drum behind a Māngere state home.
The 14-year-old, who wasn’t present when Pairama was tortured then forced to hang herself, appeared to nervously ramble as she was asked to outline everything she knew.
“Oh, not like the full dead, not like the body - just the back, yeah. And, um, and it was, the body was at an abandoned house at the back of a shed and, um, my friend took me there. Her name, do I have to tell you her name?”
Yes, the detective said.
The girl gave the nickname of a then-16-year-old friend, now 21, who is currently on trial in the High Court at Auckland - alleged by prosecutors to have willingly participated in Pairama’s murder alongside two adults who have already been convicted.
“Um, she [the current defendant] is the one that told me first that she murdered someone and then I didn’t believe her so she took me to the house and showed where the body was, and yeah,” the witness said in the interview, which was played for jurors today. “Yeah, I got scared a little bit cos that’s my first time seeing one...”
The woman, now 19, is the second former child witness to have testified at the trial, which began last week. Her name is suppressed, as is the name of the defendant.
Prosecutors allege four people were present in the abandoned home when Pairama was repeatedly punched and stomped, forced to disrobe and tied naked to a chair with soiled underwear stuffed into her mouth, burned on sensitive areas of her body with a makeshift blowtorch, had household chemicals poured on top of her, burning her eyes, and was ultimately forced to choose the method of her murder: via hanging or stabbing.
Ashley Winter, then 27, and co-defendant Kerry Te Amo, 24, were both found guilty by a jury the following year. The current and final defendant did not join them at that trial, and now a new jury is tasked with deciding her fate. Another 14-year-old witness - also with name suppression - joined the trio in the house during Pairama’s final hours of life but was given immunity in exchange for her cooperation with police and testimony at both trials.
The current defendant has acknowledged through her lawyer that she was present when Pairama was killed and she did participate in some of the torture beforehand. But she was not on board with killing Pairama, going along with it only under duress because she was fearful of dominant, older co-defendant Ashley Winter, her lawyer has suggested.
In her recorded interview with police, the young witness - a school leaver and frequent runaway - said she met up with all four participants on the same Saturday that police allege Pairama was killed.
“I was walking home but then I heard someone whistle at me, and when I turned around it was them,” she said, explaining that the next 24 hours consisted of going to the house to see the body, finding another “dark abandoned house in Rewa” for some rough, nightmare-filled sleep, then going to Bunnings the next morning to steal glue for getting high.
The witness said she was walking alongside the current defendant, “far at the back” behind Winter and the other 14-year-old, that Saturday evening when the current defendant revealed to her what happened.
“She told me that she murdered someone and I asked why,” the witness said. “She didn’t tell me. She told me her name ... the one that died. And, um, [the current defendant] said that she deserved it but [she] regretted, um, murdering her cos that was her best friend.”
The girl recalled asking the defendant: “How did youse murder her?”
“She said, yeah, she burnt her and the boy gave her a hiding and they let her hang herself, left her in the room for hours till she hanged, like till she thingy, died.”
The defendant’s tone of voice was “normal”, making the 14-year-old think she was lying, the witness told police.
“Come, I’ll show you where the body is, cuz,” the defendant allegedly replied.
They then walked to the house, where the witness said she and the defendant entered a shed illuminated only by a lighter as Winter and the other 14-year-old waited for them on the dark driveway.
“The body was covered but, um, when my friend like opened it a bit, opened like she tried to take the sheet, she tried to put the body up but she couldn’t,” the child told police. “She said it was heavy so she lifted the sheet up and showed me and [I] only saw the back, a little bit of the skin, just the back...
“I was gonna spew, yeah. I just went straight away down the driveway.”
After that, she said, she talked to the defendant more about what had led to the killing earlier in the day.
“My friend [the current defendant] said that she shaved her hair off and burnt her stomach and her private parts, and yeah,” the girl told police, explaining that the current defendant believed Pairama had caused Black Power gang members to attack Winter.
“She burnt her. She kept repeating it but I didn’t wanna talk about it cos that was gross. That was yuck,” the girl said, explaining that her friend even described the red lighter she used with an aerosol can to create the flame. “She just looked like she didn’t care.”
After the torture, Pairama said she wanted to kill herself, the witness said she was told by the defendant. She did not mention allegations that Pairama was told she’d be stabbed to death if she didn’t kill herself.
The current defendant, the witness said, told her she “wanted to stop her from hanging herself but then she said that she thought about what she did to them [regarding Black Power]. ...That’s why [the defendant] said that she deserved to die and, um, yeah, that’s when the girl hanged herself.
“And [the defendant] said when she finished hanging herself they cut the rope and wrapped the body around the sheet and then pulled her, like were holding her, taking her outside and threw her in the basket and put the ... rubbish bags in front of her.
“If I was there I woulda stopped them but I wasn’t there when they did it to her.”
Both 14-year-olds, the current defendant and Winter came to officers’ attention the next day as they fought outside a McDonald’s restaurant near the Britomart train station. They had started the fight on the train but were kicked off for their behaviour, and after the conductor smelled glue, the witness told the detective.
The witness said she was cooperating with police “cos I didn’t wanna like, I didn’t wanna just let her lie, lay there for ages. She was rotting. I had to tell the cops. And plus I felt sorry for her and her family. I felt sorry for her parents, like, cos they will probably be wondering where she is. So I had to tell the cops.”
The now-adult witness appeared on a screen in the courtroom via audio-video feed after the interview was played. Prosecutors followed up the video with few questions - satisfied to rely, for the most part, on what she had told police as a 14-year-old.
But defence lawyer David Niven had a longer set of questions which were largely intended, it seemed, to create doubts about the veracity of her memory in the video even though only one day had passed since the events she was describing. He compared the video jurors watched to the transcript from a police interview with the girl from a day earlier - just hours after the McDonald’s incident.
She initially told police she didn’t know Te Amo, the other adult defendant. Then she said a day later that she did know who he was. She also told police in the first interview that “the body was still fresh because it didn’t stink or anything” but then said repeatedly the next day that there was a stench, describing it as akin to “a dead rat”.
She said today that she didn’t remember the earlier statement. Niven asked if perhaps her memory had been impacted because she was so emotionally upset by what she had witnessed, and she agreed that might be the case.
“Even by the 10th of July [2018, during the second police interview], you were starting to forget some of the things you’d seen and heard?” Niven asked.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Would you accept that even though it was only a few days after the events, because you were forgetting stuff it may not be accurate?” he asked, and she again agreed.
He suggested to her that his client never actually used the word “murder” in their discussion. The witness said she didn’t know.
Then he noted that in the first police interview, the witness referred to Winter - not the current defendant - as having said that Pairama deserved to die. But on that point, the witness firmly disagreed that was the case.
“No,” she said. “It was [the current defendant].”
She said she couldn’t remember having said it was Winter in the first interview. But if she did, she added, she “wasn’t in the right mindset”.
The trial is set to continue tomorrow before Justice Kiri Tahana 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.
The pair's sentencing was delayed to give them time to recall where the missing money is.