'You lie in bed thinking, how did she die? Why did it happen?'

Kevin McNeil says he is disgusted and bitter about his mother's murder. Picture / Dean Purcell

Kevin McNeil presses his thumbs into his eyes, an ordinary working man in overalls and battered cap struggling to keep the tears at bay.

For two nights he has lain awake thinking about the last moments of his mother Lois Dear's life.

"You lie in bed thinking, how did she die and why did it have to happen," he says.

Although the family have no idea yet what happened the morning Ms Dear was attacked, Mr McNeil thinks it likely she was confronted by someone who perhaps demanded the keys to her car.

She would not have handed them over and would have stood up to anyone who tried to intimidate her.

"These people are thugs. I would really like to have five to 10 minutes with the guy, I am just disgusted," her son says. "I will never forgive the person who did this."

In the small village of Matatoki, a clutch of modest homes on the road between Paeroa and Thames, Mr McNeil and other family members are sitting on the deck of his sister Jan Armstrong's home trying to come to terms with the brutal murder of a loved mother and grandmother.

Mr McNeil had felt for the families of slain Marton pensioner Mona Morriss and pensioners Margaret Waldin and Ted Ferguson, murdered in Feilding last year.

"Now it's bloody happened to me and I am bitter," he says. "It's just another slaying and it's happening too much around the country. I'm gutted and I'm disgusted and I am bitter."

Just across from the deck where the family are sitting is a modest weatherboard bungalow.

"She was going to retire there next year," Mr McNeil says.

Ms Dear had sent son-in-law Graeme Armstrong brochures about fireplaces for the house, asking advice on which one to buy, enjoying planning for a future when she would be just a backyard away from her daughter's family and closer to Mr McNeil, his wife, Lizzie, and their two young children.

Lois Dear married Cam McNeil after they met in the tiny town of Coromandel in 1959.

She was teaching at the local school and he worked as a shearer.

The couple soon moved to the northern Waikato, living in Kerepehi for about 15 years.

He drove a milk truck, she taught at schools in the area, including teaching children with special needs.

If she couldn't get teaching work, she took any job she could, once working as a packer in a dairy factory.

"She worked hard all her life and she never asked anyone for anything," Mr McNeil says.

"What has happened in this country? If you are a hard worker, you get given nothing, if you are a mongrel, you get given everything. I've had a gutsful."

The marriage ended more than 20 years ago and Ms Dear married again a few years later.

That marriage also ended and Ms Dear, who was strongly independent, had been happily single for more than 10 years, Mr McNeil says.

He saw his mother for the last time on Saturday. The previous week, his sister's two children, Abby and Renee, had spent a week with their grandmother in Tokoroa for the school holidays.

When Ms Dear wasn't visiting Matatoki or Kevin and Lizzie and their children in Coromandel, she devoted her time to teaching and to her 95-year-old father, visiting him in Tokoroa every day.

"If he was asleep, she would go off around the rest home and talk with the rest of the people," Mr McNeil says.

He brings out a photo of his mother, taken a few years ago when she was dressed up for her daughter's wedding.

Gazing at the framed picture, Mr McNeil's face creases into a smile.

"She always said she was going on a diet.

"I said to her once, 'Mum, you've been going on a diet for 60 years'."

Lois Dear's funeral will be held in the Thames Civic Centre at 11am on Saturday.


Mum's last thoughts would have been of her family

Jan Armstrong, Lois Dear's daughter, struggles to think about her mother's last moments.

"It would have been Mum's worst nightmare too," she said yesterday.

Mrs Armstrong spoke of her pain at losing her 66-year-old mother, saying she was such a kind, caring person she would not even watch SPCA programmes because she could not stand the thought of animals being hurt.

"Whoever's done this has treated Mum worse than an animal," Mrs Armstrong said. "She's the last person on Earth who deserves it."

Her voice shaking with emotion, Mrs Armstrong said: "Mum was just unbelievable. She had a passion for giving and never asked for anything in return, except for love from us.

"There's no words to describe why anyone would do this to Mum, our mother, a teacher."

Her mother had been passionate about teaching and would skip morning tea in the staffroom to cut up apples, peel oranges and take off yoghurt tops for her new-entrant pupils.

"She just loved her teaching life but, above all else, she loved her family," Mrs Armstrong said.

Ms Dear took care of her 95-year-old father, regularly visiting him at the rest-home he moved to three years ago.

"Her last moments [thoughts] would have been her family and particularly what was going to happen to granddad and who would look after him," Mrs Armstrong said, crying.

"She was just such a caring person and I love her."

Mrs Armstrong told a press conference in Tokoroa of how a detective arrived at her house in Matatoki, 10km southeast of Thames, on Sunday as she was getting her two children out of the bath and asked when she had last spoken to her mother.

"I couldn't remember if it was Thursday or Friday. I just thought maybe Mum's had a car accident or something like that."

When police gave her the news of the murder, she felt "utter disbelief".

"It was like a nightmare."

She told the Herald she felt different yesterday, waking with a feeling of strength, which she attributed to her mother and which had compelled her to speak publicly.

Mrs Armstrong last saw her mother on the first week of the school holidays when she and her two daughters, aged 6 1/2 and 2 1/2, visited her in Tokoroa.

They visited Ms Dear's father and went shopping and to the local McDonald's restaurant.

On the Friday, Ms Dear had gone back with her daughter and granddaughters to their home at Matatoki and had babysat the girls while Mrs Armstrong and her husband, Graeme, went to Auckland.

On the Saturday, Ms Dear had taken her granddaughters on a day trip to see her son and his family, returning to Matatoki at night.

"Mum being Mum, she wanted the children back in their own beds at night, so they were nice and comfy," Mrs Armstrong said.

Her last conversation with her mother was on the phone and centred on school.

"I asked her if she was organised for the new term and she said she still had things to do."

At the press conference, Mrs Armstrong thanked the people of Tokoroa for their support.

"I've always known it's been an awesome community. That's why Mum's been down here for 19 years."

The family plan to bury Ms Dear, who was single and had seven grandchildren, in Thames.

- Juliet Rowan