Michael Tamatea was found dead at Hōkio Beach after being last seen at a Levin pub. Photo / Supplied
By Lauren Crimp of RNZ
Rumours and speculation have been swirling throughout a small lower North Island town after 34-year-old Michael Tamatea was found dead four months ago. His whānau told Lauren Crimp they believe people know more than they are letting on about the lead-up to his death at Hōkio Beach near Levin, and they are determined to get to the bottom of it.
Michael Tamatea – known as Mikey – was cooking at a Levin restaurant one February evening, and 12 hours later he was found dead in a pond, at a beach 15 minutes’ drive away.
Mikey’s whānau believe one woman knows more about what happened before he died four months ago – and they do not believe she has told police the full story.
RNZ has chosen not to report the woman’s name. Attempts to contact her have been unsuccessful.
The woman and Mikey had both been drinking – separately – at Levin’s Oxford Hotel on the Wednesday night before he died, Mikey’s sister Sarah Tamatea told RNZ.
She said that woman would later tell police she had driven Mikey the 10km to Hōkio Beach, where he was found dead early the next morning.
RNZ asked police a raft of questions, but they declined to comment other than to say they did not believe Mikey’s death was suspicious, and the case is with the coroner.
According to the Oxford’s CCTV footage, the pair were not together at the pub, Sarah said.
She has pored over that footage. RNZ has viewed some of it.
The footage RNZ saw showed from about 1.07am, the woman was arguing with a man she was playing pool with.
A staff member told RNZ as the argument continued they decided to “call it” and tell them it was time to go. It was closing time, anyway.
At 1.10am the woman put her bag over her shoulder, threw a pool cue across a table, and left.
As she walked out the door, Mikey entered that area of the pub.
At 1.12am he is seen chatting outside with a staff member for a few minutes.
The staff member told RNZ they offered him a ride home, which he declined.
RNZ saw footage of Mikey walking up and down Levin’s main drag, Oxford St, near the pub and into the median strip.
He wove a little and seemed slightly unsteady. But the staff member told RNZ that was not strange, because he had an unusual way of moving anyway.
He had been drinking but was not “legless”, they said.
The woman who had been playing pool later picked Mikey up, Sarah said.
Her memory of the CCTV footage was that the car drove back and forth past Mikey a few times before stopping near him.
But the staff member said it showed the car driving past on the other side of the road, and doing a u-turn to pull up near him.
RNZ has not seen that footage.
Sarah and the staff member agreed it showed the car pulling over near Mikey.
They said the footage did not show him getting in the car, because it was too dark to see.
But Sarah said the police told her the woman admitted taking Mikey to Hōkio Beach, and that CCTV showed the pair at McDonald’s before driving out to the beach.
The woman made a statement to police three days after Mikey’s death, Sarah said.
Police told her what that contained, she said.
RNZ put a number of detailed questions to police, and requested an interview, but they declined to make any further comment.
Sarah said the woman told the police she had taken Mikey to Hokio Beach, and they had parked up on a flat sandy area about 100 metres back from the shoreline, near a small tidal pool of water, where Mikey’s body was later found.
The woman told police she felt unsafe because Mikey was drunk, and hitting on her, Sarah said.
So she pulled him - a skinny, but nearly 1.8m tall man - from the passenger side of her Suzuki Swift, across the centre console, through the driver’s side and on to the grass, Sarah said.
“How the heck do you do that?”
Mikey had no bruising on his body, Sarah said.
“When we went to go formally identify our brother, he was beautiful... looked like he was honestly sleeping.”
Sarah said her whānau had borrowed a friend’s Swift and tried to replicate what the woman claimed happened.
“We have tried this numerous times, numerous people, different shapes and sizes and everyone single one of us ended up with a bruise, or being sore, or said ‘nah, stop, that’s enough’.”
The woman then told police once she had pulled Mikey from the car she drove about 100 metres further down the sandy path, then got stuck, and walked on to the beach to find help, Sarah said.
Around the corner of the hilly dunes, she found a ute and rapped on the window to ask the two occupants for a tow.
RNZ has chosen not to name those men.
Sarah said one of the men told Sarah he helped the woman about 3am.
RNZ’s attempts to contact that man have been unsuccessful.
That man had since put Mikey’s mum Lucilla in their ute and showed her where they had been parked, and where they towed the woman’s car.
Sarah said the man told her he and his friend drove out of the beach to get a tow rope, returned, and pulled the Suzuki Swift back past the water where Mikey’s body was found, to a flat patch of grass about 40 metres away, said Sarah.
They told her they did not see Mikey, she said.
The woman then slept the night there in her car, Sarah said.
Sarah questioned if the woman feared Mikey because he was hitting on her, why she had driven further down the beach that night, rather than back out the exit - and why she had stayed the night so close to where she had left Mikey.
“Not only that, when my brother was found the next morning, she was still parked up at the beach when the police arrived,” Sarah said the police told her.
“They were pulling my brother from the water, and her vehicle was still there.
“She drove away while my brother was being removed from the water, and she did not once, at that point, say she knew who the tūpāpaku [body] was, or that she was there, or any part of the reason that my brother was in that water. And she drove off.”
It was three days before the woman contacted police to make a statement, Sarah said she was told.
Sarah and her whānau think the woman knew more about Mikey’s death than she was letting on, as did the two men in the ute.
Sarah said while she believed what the police told her whānau - that Mikey accidentally drowned, but that the official cause of death would be determined by the coroner - she did not believe parts of the woman’s story stacked up.
Police said while they understood Mikey’s whānau had questions, they did not believe there were any suspicious circumstances.
“If any new information is received in relation to his death, Police will assess that information and progress as appropriate,” they said.
“The matter is now with the coroner to determine the cause of Michael’s death, which police continue to assist with in an information-gathering capacity.”
A Coroners Court spokesperson confirmed the coroner had opened an inquiry into Mikey’s death.
Inquiries can vary in length, with some taking several years, they said.
Mikey’s whānau did not want to wait that long for closure.
Sarah said they had turned into “super sleuths” searching for answers.
“And I make no apologies for that.”
Life is not the same for Mikey’s whānau.
Sarah says she and her siblings are coping in different ways, and they have at times become fragmented by rifts fuelled by local speculation about what happened the night he died.
The pain is evident in Sarah and Lucilla’s faces, and in their tears.
When Mikey died, Lucilla was coming to the end of her cancer treatment.
She had already buried one child, along with her husband and stepson.
“How much more can a person take? How much more pain does the family have to go through and our family have to suffer before we get answers and before we can start healing?” Lucilla said.
“Every day I cry, and every day I look at that door ... that’s why normally I sit his photos down there, and I talk to him while I watch TV and I keep thinking he’s gonna walk through that door.
“I just struggle to function, I struggle because I see my kids hurting, no mother should bury two children.
“And I don’t want anger and hatred coming from my kids because I don’t want one of them to be hurt, I don’t want any of my other children to get hurt, but I want to know why I’ve lost a second child.”
Sarah said she and her whānau would not give up on their search for answers about what events led up to her brother’s death.
“We’re not going to stop fighting for this.”
-RNZ
