Double murderer Nathan Frost sentenced for objectionable material found at time of Taranaki killings

Nathan Frost, pictured at his sentencing in 2021, was jailed for life for the murder of his father and brother. Photo / Pool

A young man who murdered his father and brother in the middle of the night has, four years later, been convicted of possessing objectionable material relating to torture and extreme violence, including videos of the Christchurch mosque shooting, at the time of the killings.

Nathan Gordon Frost killed his father, Stephen John Frost, 55, and brother, Regan Frost-Lawn, 15, in a frenzied stabbing at their family’s Hāwera, South Taranaki, property on January 18, 2021.

After Frost, then 21, killed his father and brother, he went looking for his sister, Grace Frost-Lawn.

But moments before Regan died, he warned Grace of the imminent threat, yelling, “he’s got a knife”.

This gave Grace time to hide and phone the police. Frost never found her.

At his sentencing in the High Court, Justice Rebecca Ellis said there was no doubt that Regan saved Grace’s life that night.

Frost was imprisoned for life with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years, which the Court of Appeal later reduced to 18 years.

What was never raised at the September 2021 sentencing, however, was the material found on Frost at the time of his arrest.

Police had seized 26 electronic devices following the murders.

Frost’s cellphone and computer hard drive contained objectionable material relating to torture and extreme violence, including videos containing segments of the Christchurch mosque shooting.

Nathan Frost was sentenced in New Plymouth District Court. Photo / Tara Shaskey

Other videos included people being shot, decapitated and committing suicide, and child exploitation images and videos.

Two representative charges of possession of an objectionable publication with knowledge, relating to what police found in 2021, were not laid until March 2024.

Frost, now 25, admitted the charges and was sentenced in the New Plymouth District Court earlier this month.

According to Judge Brian Callaghan’s sentencing notes, released to NZME this week, the extreme violence material reflected “a disturbing pattern of graphic harm and suffering”.

The judge, who declined NZME’s application to photograph Frost at the recent sentencing, questioned the delay in police laying the charges and was told it was due to the number of homicides Taranaki police were dealing with at the time.

“Even if the local police were involved in other homicide cases, it seems to me that delay is quite unreasonable, because the defendant has had to wait with this hanging over his head, or the possibility of it hanging over his head,” the judge’s notes said.

“I have asked myself the question what might have been the case had the defendant been sentenced at the time in September 2021, and what in fact the Court may have done. I cannot speculate on that, other than to say I do not think it would have meant an unreasonable sentence.”

In sentencing Frost on the new charges, Judge Callaghan took a starting point of five and a half years’ imprisonment.

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After making adjustments for totality and his guilty pleas, the judge also made deductions for Frost’s background, explaining “that is, mental health issues and youth and absence of previous convictions at the time”.

The judge reached an end sentence of 26 months imprisonment, which Frost will serve concurrently to the sentence he is already serving for the murders.

An order was made for the destruction of the electronic devices, and the judge noted Frost would automatically be added to the child sex offender register.

The murders

In the early hours of January 18, 2021, Frost, who’d consumed a large amount of alcohol, was heard causing a disturbance and crying in his bedroom.

His father went in to check on him, but was attacked by Frost who was armed with a pipe wrench.

Frost used the tool to repeatedly strike his father around the head until he fell to the ground unconscious.

He then grabbed a hunting knife and fatally stabbed his father in the neck.

At this point, Regan confronted Frost over the attack on their father, and yelled: “Get off him, you mongrel”.

Regan yelled out to Grace, warning her that their brother was armed with a knife, and was then almost immediately attacked himself.

Frost stabbed him repeatedly around the back and shoulder area, as well as four times in the neck.

Next, he grabbed the keys to the sleep-out, where Grace was staying that evening.

But she had already fled and hid nearby, from where she phoned for help.

Police arrived soon after and arrested Frost at the scene.

At his sentencing for the murders, Frost’s lawyer described him as a “young emotionally damaged man with rehabilitative prospects” and told the court how, at one point, he’d acknowledged that his actions were “disgusting” and that he’d “acted like a monster”.

Justice Ellis noted that Frost had harboured resentment toward his father over separating from his mother, who later died in 2016.

He had been left a “ticking time bomb” by his use of drugs and alcohol.

Justice Ellis said it was only through luck and quick thinking that his sister had escaped, and that Frost wasn’t being sentenced for three murders.

Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.