The 15-year-old killed running a drug house

By BRIDGET CARTER

Michael Heremaia's brief life ended in a Mangere drug house which his family believe he ran for a gang.

He was just 15. His body, covered in knife wounds, was found in a pool of blood on Sunday morning.

His grieving family yesterday spoke of a street-smart, savvy South Auckland teenager who wanted to be a hard man.



Neighbours, though, called him an "enemy in the street" who "degraded our area".

Michael lived alone at the end of a suburban street in a small 1970s-style house with cars parked on the front lawn.

People living nearby knew the house as somewhere drugs were sold - a "tinny house".

They would watch as an endless stream of cars parked outside for a short time, then left. Patched gang members were seen going inside.

Sometimes they saw Michael, a confident boy who liked rap music and hated school and whose brother was a national boxing champion.

But Michael mainly kept to himself.

On Sunday, his family found him lying fatally stabbed in the house, surrounded by blood.

There were wounds to his neck, chest and back.

Michael's father, Jack Heremaia, said his son was "afraid of nothing", just as he himself once was.

His reputation was as a teenager "with balls".

"He just didn't know those words 'walk away'," Mr Heremaia said.

"If he got into trouble he would never back down ... He just didn't care."

Michael had left Otahuhu College halfway through his third-form year. He was expelled from an alternative education course for smoking cannabis. He left home and moved into the tinny house.

The cream-coloured house had no electricity. When he wanted a shower he would go to his family home nearby.

The first his family knew of his death was when a relative known as "Brown", covered in blood from his own stab wounds, woke them up, saying Michael was hurt.

The family - Mr Heremaia, Michael's sister, Elayna Asiata, and her husband, Frank Asiata - waited until Brown was taken away in an ambulance, then drove to Appleby Place to find Michael.

They walked through an open ranchslider into a house covered in blood.

Michael was lying on the kitchen floor in his blood with his fist to his stomach and his head to the side.

"I knew it was my son straight away, but I didn't go into shock," Mr Heremaia said. "I looked at him and said, 'That's Michael'."

The family, who gathered at their Mangere home yesterday, spoke of the boy who had always looked up to his big brother Steven, an 18-year-old national boxing champion who had won various sporting awards.

Also at their home was his teenage girlfriend, understood to have been with Michael at Appleby Place on Saturday night just hours before he was killed.

One of nine children, Michael was as naturally talented at sport - particularly rugby league - as Steven. He boxed, too, but at the King Cobra gang gym.

Elayna Asiata felt she should have given more attention to Michael, as Steven was always in the limelight.

But she said Michael had a good relationship with his family.

Yesterday, they said they thought the attack on Michael was connected with drugs - probably P, or pure methamphetamine, because it was so brutal.

Tinny houses have long been the main outlets for cannabis sales in $20 lots wrapped in foil, known as tinnies, foils or bullets. enough for a handful of joints.

The outlets, which police call "drug supermarkets" are increasingly used to sell P.

They are usually set up by gang members or drug suppliers, who put minions in place to take the risk of selling the drug to mainly unknown customers.

Mr Heremaia said Michael "rose up in their [King Cobra] ranks", which could have been the reason behind his death.

The family said they loved him and wanted his killers to pay.

Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Hallett said Michael was an associate of the King Cobras gang. Police were still hunting his killer.

One breakthrough occurred on Monday night, when a red 1989 Toyota Corolla was found. Mr Hallett said it could have been at the address the night Michael was murdered.

Police want to talk to anyone who saw the vehicle around Appleby Place on Saturday night or Sunday morning.