Maya Moore is on trial in the Wellington District Court, where she denies charges of arson and attempted arson. Inset / NZ Police
A woman accused of lighting fires at two Wairarapa properties allegedly woke a neighbour that night and told her, “No one’s going to be safe, and I’ve had enough; I’m going to deal with it.”
The neighbour, Odette Doherty, who had been roused from her sleep, told Maya Moore to go home to bed and they’d sort it out in the morning.
Later that night, the Crown says, fires were lit at two rural properties near Doherty’s house on Wards Lane, destroying four buildings and partially damaging one.
A fire investigator who arrived at one of the properties in the early morning of October 11, 2022, told the court the fires were so involved he “thought the whole countryside was on fire”.
Moore is now on trial in the Wellington District Court on nine charges, including five of arson and one of attempted arson.
The 50-year-old denies lighting a fire at a house and a sleepout at one property and setting alight a house, an implement shed, a hayshed and attempting to burn a sleepout at a second.
She also denies a charge of resisting arrest and possession of a rifle and 133 rounds of .22 calibre ammunition.
Moore isn’t present at the trial, with Judge Peter Hobbs telling the jury they shouldn’t speculate on why she wasn’t there and not to assume her absence is an indication of her guilt.
The Crown’s case is that the fires were lit after Moore fell out with the couples who lived at the two properties. Before the fires, Moore had been living and working on one of the farms and was grazing her small herd of cows at the other.
Crown prosecutor Francesca Beaton told the court that by October 2022, things had reached a boiling point. Moore had lost her job, was asked to leave the sleepout where she was staying and had been told to remove her cows.
The Crown says that overnight on October 10, Moore, who was angry with both couples, took the tyres from one of the farms, stuffed fabric which had a flammable liquid on it inside them and placed them outside the buildings on the properties before lighting them. A hay bale was also set on fire.
Doherty, who’d lived on Wards Lane for 50 years and had known her neighbours for more than two decades, told the court of her dealings with Moore, whom she met in the months before the fires.
Moore had initially helped to milk her cows, and Doherty had helped Moore move her cows on to the neighbour’s property and had helped deliver fertiliser for it.
She said Moore could be very nice, but also explained her moods could change “like a light switch” and she’d get very angry, swearing and spitting.
Doherty said Moore disliked both couples, describing them as “useless” and criticising their farming practices. But Doherty, who was friends with the couples, said she’d tried not to get involved.
She told the court Moore took exception when the couple who leased the land to her wanted to put a horse in her paddock.
She also got upset when beekeepers walked across her land.
Doherty said she’d explained to Moore that the arrangement with the beekeepers had been in place longer than her cows had been on the land, and they had a right to be there.
On the night of the fires, she and Moore had eaten dinner at her mother’s house. Doherty came home and got into bed, only to be woken in the night by yelling and screaming from outside.
She said at first she didn’t recognise the voice, but when she looked out the window, she saw Moore, who was dressed in dirty clothes and gumboots.
Doherty opened the door and spoke to Moore, who told her, “No one’s going to be safe, and I’ve had enough; I’m going to deal with it.”
Later, she said Moore said, “No one’s going to be all right tomorrow.”
Doherty said Moore was spitting and swearing. The witness told the defendant to go home, saying they would resolve matters in the morning. That was the last time she saw Moore.
Lawyer Janine Bonifant, who was appointed to help the court because Moore isn’t represented, asked Doherty if Moore had mentioned any specific names. She said she hadn’t.
Doherty also confirmed that she hadn’t called the police or thought to warn neighbours, as a result of her interactions after what Moore had said. And she agreed Moore had left her property when she’d asked her to.
The Crown says there is no direct evidence of Moore lighting the fires. But DNA found on fabric from an unlit tyre on the deck of a sleepout matched Moore’s, Beaton said. The Crown also says a gumboot print matching Moore’s was found near a pile of tyres.
When she was arrested the next day, Moore had a box of matches and a bottle of beer on her. Traces of an accelerant were found on her left hand and the boots she was wearing, Beaton said.
A rifle and ammunition were also found inside her truck.
In a short statement to the jury, Bonifant urged its members to keep an open mind, saying Moore was entitled to the presumption of innocence and it was for the Crown to prove its case.
Bonifant told the jury the Crown’s case was entirely circumstantial, with no direct evidence Moore had lit the fires. There were no eyewitnesses, no confession and no CCTV. She also suggested Moore might have had the firearm and ammunition for a lawful purpose.
Under cross-examination by Bonifant, the two fire investigators who gave evidence that the fires had been deliberately lit agreed they were responsible for determining where and how the fires were lit and whether they were deliberate or accidental.
But they agreed they couldn’t say who started the fires or whether more than one person was responsible.
The trial is expected to run into next week.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently, she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.