Random victim father of 3

Antonie Ronnie Dixon trained his gun on at least half a dozen people during his night of P-fuelled mayhem.

This story could have been about a cleaner at BP in Bombay, a motorist driving to Auckland, one of two service station attendants working late in east Auckland, a woman who stopped at a service station to buy a lighter, a police dog handler, a hitchhiker in Howick, a resident of East Tamaki.

Dixon sized all of them up. But he settled on James Te Aute, so this story is about him.

With public and media attention focused on Dixon's samurai sword attack on Simonne Butler and Renee Gunbie, murdered Mangere man Mr Te Aute, 25, has become almost the forgotten victim.

"We don't know much about that man at all, and it's easy to forget that at the centre of this case is a human tragedy," Crown prosecutor Simon Moore said at Dixon's trial.

Mr Te Aute was no angel. Like Dixon, he was a heavy P user and fuelled the habit with petty crime.

But to his partner of 10 years, Julie Cropley, he was primarily "a good guy" and a good father to their three children under 10.

They met in Mangere as teenagers and she liked his attitude to life.

"He was a fun guy to be with and he just lived life to the full," she told the Weekend Herald.

"He was a good father to his kids. His son would know him the best because he used to go out with him all the time. And my middle daughter.

"My baby, she was 1 when he passed away, but she knows who her dad is.

"He was an outgoing person and really energetic. He spent a lot of time with his kids. We used to go to the beach all the time, Maraetai or Eastern, or if we could, somewhere further. Good times."

In six-tenths of a second, Antonie Dixon destroyed all that. That's how long it took him to fire 10 bullets into Mr Te Aute's back in a dark carpark in east Auckland.

After mutilating Ms Butler and Ms Gunbie in Pipiroa on January 21, 2003, Dixon vowed to police that he was going to go on a rampage that would make the 1990 Aramoana massacre "look like a walk in a park". He drove to Auckland and went hunting for victims.

Mr Te Aute was sitting in a car behind a Caltex service station in Highland Park with two friends, including Ms Cropley's brother, Jackson Lemalu.

Dixon drove up, with his car headlights off. He gave the trio the fingers and mouthed words. He was baiting them, setting a trap.

"We thought we might have known him. We wanted to know what his problem was, so we got out of the car," Mr Lemalu said in court.

They walked towards Dixon. Mr Lemalu saw Dixon raise his arm, and he hit the ground. Mr Te Aute turned to run and Dixon fired through the passenger window. Mr Te Aute was dead before he hit the ground.

Ms Cropley sat through the long trial for the sake of Mr Te Aute - known as JT - and their children.