Woman has murder charge dismissed, name suppressed, over Rau Tongia killing

Rau Tongia, 33, was found dead on December 20, 2020. A woman charged with being a party to his murder has had her charge dismissed by the High Court. Photo / Supplied

A woman accused of being a party to murder in the killing of Rau Tongia has had the charge against her dismissed.

Tongia, 33, was shot as he slept beside the woman in her single bed in December 2020. The woman maintained she heard and saw nothing all night because she was “out of it”.

The 41-year-old, whose name is suppressed, was charged with being a party to the killing after allegedly sending Facebook messages to Shayde Carolyn Weston, who was last year convicted of Tongia’s murder.

These included “kill him” and “this n***** needs to go permanently”.

In the woman’s trial at the High Court at Wellington, which was in its third week, the Crown alleged that three minutes after sending those messages, Weston was on her way to Karori with a shotgun to kill Tongia.

But the defence argued there was no evidence Weston acted on those messages. They say Weston acted without any incitement or encouragement from the woman and instead shot Tongia in retaliation for a beating he’d given her earlier that night.

The woman vehemently denied sending several Facebook messages before Tongia’s death, telling police, “I didn’t write that. I can’t even write like that drunk. I was f***** off my face”.

Today, following the conclusion of the Crown’s case, the woman’s lawyer, Elizabeth Hall, made an application to dismiss the charge.

In granting the application, Justice Paul Radich told the jury there was no evidence Weston had read or received those Facebook messages.

He said that without that evidence, it left the jury to draw inferences.

Justice Radich said it was a “rare case” where the charge should be dismissed, to which the woman looked relieved.

He permanently suppressed the woman’s name.

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.