She pulled him to her chest.
"He could not speak but was making a humming noise. Then I talked to him, telling him 'Do you recognise me? Your mother is really worried and loves you'," she said.
Kaufusi feared Epenisa's wife Malia Li was going to kill him, and she cried all night after visiting, she told a jury.
Li is on trial at the High Court in Auckland for causing his death through "gross negligence" and failing to provide necessities as his legal carer.
He died from sepsis caused by infected sores "all over his body" in October 2016. He was fused to the chair he died in, the Crown alleges.
Kaufusi went to the house Epenisa was living in after learning he was sick while she visited New Zealand from Tonga in 2016.
In the lounge she asked Li three times to see her sick nephew, which Li denied. She asked Li's daughter where her father was and the daughter pointed to a bedroom door.
Inside the bedroom Kaufusi was confronted with a smell like "a dead animal" and a rug that was soaked with what she believed was urine.
"The reason why we left is because my daughter came and stood by the door and said: 'We should go before Malia calls the police because we are not allowed to be here'," said Kaufusi.
"I put Vilimai back to where he has lying down. I took another cushion and placed it to where his head was and came outside and asked Malia to let us shower Viliami because he smelt really, really bad but Malia did not agree or accept. I asked her again, a third time, but she said no and asked us to leave."
Kaufusi said Li was lying on the floor during the visit because she was hospitalised due to problems with her stomach.
During Kaufusi's evidence the defendant audibly sobbed in the dock.
Kaufusi said Li told her to come back the next day to shower her husband.
"I was scared and told my daughter ... that Malia might try to kill him. I was really worried, I cried nearly all night," she said.
Overnight she received a phone call in which she learned Epenisa had died.
Kaufusi's daughter Manusiu Luani told the jury she also noticed a smell in the house.
"It's smelling of p*ss … like a dirty pig.
"I thought there was a leak in the toilet."
When her mother went into the room where Epenisa was, she heard her cry.
"She was complaining: 'Is this how you are being treated? I didn't know you were in such poor condition' This is what I heard from the living room," the courtroom heard.
"We were all quiet, just listening to my mum's crying."
After Kaufusi and Luani received a call that Epenisa had died they went back to the house at around 2am. They both entered the room Epenisa had died in.
"The air of the room was really bad. It smells like sores that had been there for a long time ... smells like faeces.
"I had never witnessed a place like it.
"I can't believe he died still in the chair."
Ambulance and police arrived at the house and Luani said Li was being interviewed by officers.
