By SCOTT MacLEOD
Ese Junior Falealii, who callously killed two men in armed robberies, told a psychiatrist he was haunted by the ghosts of his victims.
Marcus Doig and John Vaughan, shot in the head during a spree of violent South Auckland robberies in April and May, slipped into the dreams of their killer.
Falealii said he heard just their voices at first. But as he woke in the remand cell at Mt Eden Prison, he caught a vision of the two men. They abused him and said he would burn in hell.
The 18-year-old killer has had little sleep since.
Falealii's vision, revealed in a psychiatric report obtained by the Weekend Herald, seems like poetic justice after the nightmares he visited upon the friends, relatives and workmates of his victims.
More than 100 of them lined a public gallery in the High Court at Auckland yesterday as sentence was passed: life imprisonment for murdering Mr Doig at the Pakuranga Pizza Delivery Company on May 8, and Mr Vaughan at the Mangere Bridge ASB a week later.
Mr Doig was killed with a bullet in the back of his head as he obeyed instructions to lie on the floor.
Mr Vaughan had his hands up in surrender, having handed over $6000 in a bag, when he was shot in the head.
Falealii also received eight years and nine months for the attempted murder of the pizza firm's owner, John Bell, and seven years and nine months for eight aggravated robberies.
Justice Judith Potter imposed the second-longest non-parole sentence for murder - 17 years and nine months.
Crown prosecutor Simon Moore described Falealii's crimes as "gratuitous, unnecessary, deadly violence" at a "tragically unique level".
"Few cases have excited this level of public outrage. I've received more letters in this case than I have in any other."
Defence lawyer Kevin Ryan, QC, admitted: "One can only be appalled at the deep harm done to the Doig and Vaughan families."
Falealii was led away to yells from the gallery of "Rot in hell, you bastard" and "You're dead when you get out".
Afterwards, Mr Doig's father, Peter Doig, said Falealii should not be let out of prison.
Mr Doig said he was haunted by the thought of Marcus being made to lie on the floor.
"His little heart would have been going at a thousand to one.
"To see him in his casket with a bruise on the front of his head where he hit the floor ... "
Documents filed in court show Falealii was born, the fourth of six children, in Middlemore Hospital on January 2, 1984, with a hole in his heart.
He was rebellious from the start. At age 3, he twice ran away from home and wandered up to 4km before he was found.
His parents, Ese Senior and Tautala, became so concerned that they took him to a Catholic priest to find out if he was possessed by a demon. He was not, they were told.
Falealii's school life was marked by fighting, stealing and at least one assault on a teacher.
Mr Ryan said teachers at Redoubt North Primary had urged that he receive psychiatric help, but he got none.
By age 11, Falealii was smoking cannabis, and by 15 he had been expelled from De La Salle College.
His parents wrote to the court: "We were given two options: to find another school that would take him, or to refer him to a behavioural specialist, which we were unable to afford."
From December 2000, Falealii collected 10 convictions for aggravated robbery, burglary, theft, being unlawfully in a building, possessing cannabis and failing to answer court bail.
He was on a suspended sentence and 12 months' supervision during the deadly robbery spree.
Outside the court yesterday, Mr Ryan said Falealii was high on drugs, including methamphetamine, when he robbed and killed. The psychiatric report showed his intelligence was "grossly below average".
After his arrest, Falealii told psychiatrist Dr Sandy Simpson that he never seemed to think before acting.
He claimed that his father, especially, called him dumb, stupid or weak. He was beaten with belts, hoses and fists for misbehaving.
But Falealii's parents said they loved him, despite being "ashamed and disgraced" by his actions.
When they saw their son's image in the Herald on May 16 and realised he was a killer, they faced a tough choice. They took the course that Justice Potter yesterday said was "honest and courageous" - they reported their son to police.
Falealii stood quietly in the dock as he was sentenced. He seemed barely interested.
But Dr Simpson's report shows he was mentally fit to be there.
"I know the consequences," Falealii told the psychiatrist.
"I know what I did."
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