Nowhere else to turn, says victim's family

By PAULA OLIVER

The sister of a woman who was stabbed and beheaded by an insane killer says she has run out of places to turn in her fight for accountability over the death.

The body of Fiona Maulolo, aged 31, was found in a bath at her Lower Hutt home in April 1997. Her decapitated head was found in a plastic bag inside the clothes drier.

The mother-of-two had been strangled by her boyfriend, Leslie Raymond Parr, who had also repeatedly driven a chisel into her heart.

Parr, who had a long history of mental illness and had been released from care a year before the killing, told police that Ms Maulolo had thought she was Satan and wanted him to kill her.

A jury found Parr not guilty on the grounds of insanity and he is now detained as a special patient at a secure unit in Porirua Hospital.

But for Ms Maulolo's sister, Tina, the death is unresolved. She wants someone to be held accountable.

Five years on from the horrific killing, a coroner's report into the death has slammed the mental health system's handling of Parr, and recommended that district health boards take extra precautions with patients deemed to be high-risk.

Wellington coroner Garry Evans, in a finding released today, details Parr's long history of mental illness and criticises a Hutt Valley Health decision to release him from care.

Parr's problems began in 1995 when he developed insomnia and lost his appetite. He was admitted to hospital under the Mental Health Act after twice cutting his wrists and attempting to hang himself.

Parr responded to anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medications, but experienced delusions and hallucinations when he stopped taking them - once thinking his father was Satan.

After attacking a policeman, a court made Parr a compulsory patient on March 19, 1996, because he was a risk to himself and others.

But just nine days later he was released from care by psychiatrist Dr Linda Astor - who later fled the country after she was exposed as a transvestite with bogus credentials.

In his report, Mr Evans says that Parr's release before the six-month court order had lapsed was without statutory authority, irregular and in breach of the provisions of the Mental Health Act.

"That he should have been discharged in such manner shows either the absence of a proper system of control or a serious failure of such system as was then in force."

Mr Evans says Parr received no follow-up care when he was released.

The coroner is also critical of the transfer of Parr from care in Porirua to Hutt Hospital.

The report questions whether critical files on Parr's history were ever handed over to Hutt Valley Health by Capital Coast Health, and says communication between the two, "poor from the beginning, got no better as time passed".

Since the scandal surrounding Dr Astor, Mr Evans says, the Medical Council and district health boards are well aware of the care needed in vetting overseas applications for registration as doctors.

But he makes a recommendation for an amendment to the law to allow clinicians immediate access to forensic psychiatric reports, which they cannot now see.

He also asks that the Director of Mental Health give consideration to a nationwide system to ensure high-risk mental health patients are entered into a clinical management system that provides additional safeguards.

Capital and Coast District Health Board's mental health service clinical director, Dr Peter McGeorge, yesterday rejected criticism that Parr's files were not handed over to Hutt Valley Health.

Dr McGeorge said all the files had been transferred, and Hutt Valley staff were told of Parr's condition.

He said he supported the coroner's mooted law change regarding access to forensic files, but not the adoption of a new system for high-risk patients.

He said Capital and Coast's system already did what the coroner wanted.

The coroner's report yesterday offered cold comfort to Tina Maulolo, who became emotional when speaking of her younger sister.

The Maulolo family have twice failed in attempts to win $100,000 in damages from Hutt Valley Health for its part in hiring Dr Astor and eventually releasing Parr.

The Health and Disability Commissioner has told Ms Maulolo he will not pursue her case because too much time lapsed between the death and the laying of her complaint.

It has all left Ms Maulolo disillusioned.

"Basically, the health professionals got a slap on the hand and told 'Don't do it again'. But there's no justice for us. No one is accountable for it.

"You start to get bitter, and it hurts that after all these years we have come to no conclusion."