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On a frigid winter night, Taryn Williams fled barefoot across farmland, a child on each hip, away from intruders.
The men had wounded her and her husband Orren, and held them at gunpoint after breaking into her home overlooking Kāwhia harbor to steal cannabis.
Orren Williams escaped to his weapons cabinet during the incident, in the early hours of June 6, 2019, and then fired at the men’s vehicle.
“He saved me. He protected my family,” Taryn Williams told jury in Hamilton Superior Court Wednesday afternoon.
Orren Scott Williams, 38, is on trial for murder and three counts of wounding with intent to cause serious bodily harm in the June 2019 incident.
The morning of the incident, a man pointed a gun at Taryn in the living room, but then Orren ran out and a man yelled “take it,” he said.
“I looked up and had a clear chance to get out,” he said. “I just saw an opportunity to go out and get my kids out.”
She grabbed the children, ages four and six, from their beds, pulled her cell phone from under her pillow, and the trio walked out of her son’s bedroom window.
“It was very cold and we were barefoot,” he said.
“We didn’t have time to get any boots or jackets or anything … It was probably the coldest night of the year so I tried to wear them as much as I could.”
They kept running towards a neighbor’s house, he said, and heard gunshots, a hole and more shots.
He ended a phone call from Orren because he didn’t want the screen to “put us in the spotlight.”
“I didn’t know if it was Orren or if the boys had [the phone]. But once I turned the corner I thought maybe it was Orren, maybe he was bleeding to death somewhere. “
She gave him the phone back and they told him the masked men had left.
Earlier in the night, Taryn had heard loud crushing sounds that “sounded like a vehicle hitting the ranch skidder.”
In the hallway he encountered what looked like a sea of men dressed in black, wearing ski masks, he said.
A large one covered her with a machete, told her to bend over and ask her where her husband’s brother was.
Dominico Zapata / Things
The shooting occurred in Hauturu, near Kāwhia, on the west coast of Waikato.
She grabbed the machete, but another man slammed a rifle into her back, she said.
She told them that her husband’s brother was in Australia, and at some point she heard her little daughter screaming.
“I said, back in your bed, baby,” he said.
“I didn’t want to be grabbed. I didn’t want her to see what was happening.”
In the living room, she was hit with the rifle a second time.
During questioning, Crown Prosecutor Rebecca Mann challenged various parts of Taryn’s account.
He asked if the mention of Orren’s brother was something the couple had come up with as an explanation for what had happened, but Taryn said she didn’t fully understand the question.
Later, Taryn said they didn’t have enough cannabis in the house “for that kind of takedown.”
Mann also investigated Taryn about the gunshots she heard while running, why she couldn’t remember Orren on the ground next to her in the living room, and how she had ended a call from Orren while running through farmland with children on her hips.
The questioning will continue on Thursday morning.
The semiautomatic gave the defendant the advantage of firepower, says prosecutor
Earlier in the day, Crown Prosecutor Jacinda Hamilton suggested Williams had the upper hand in the early hours of June 6, 2019, once she took on her semi-automatic.
“You appreciate that you have everything on them in terms of firepower,” he said.
“I didn’t think that at the time,” Williams told the court Wednesday.
“At this point the tables had turned, right?” Hamilton asked. “You were the aggressor and they had to withdraw.
“There are still four against one,” Williams said. “I don’t think that is being overcome.”
Hamilton suggested that an angry Williams fired multiple times when the men weren’t retreating fast enough for his liking.
“[The car] he was not withdrawing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have shot him, “Williams replied.
“I just wanted them to leave. Why didn’t they leave?”
Dominico Zapata / Things
Police search teams combed Williams’ property in Hauturu after the shooting.
Earlier, Williams said that a silhouette a few feet from the yard prompted him to start shooting, thinking “it was him or me.”
But Hamilton said blood concentrations in the driveway were at least 40 meters down the farm’s driveway.
The men had never tried to shoot Williams or his wife Taryn inside the home, he said.
And Williams had stood his ground against them, armed with nothing but a decorative taiaha.
“Barely,” Williams replied.
Those injured in the shooting were Faalili Moleli Fauatea, who died from his gunshot wounds, Shaun Te Kanawa, Joe Tumaialu and Grayson Toilolo.
After the incident, Williams sent his wife and two children to a friend’s house, leaving the house around 5.50 a.m.
That was shortly after a message from his friend Wade Matthews, who had seen a car that could be the intruders’ car.
“Get the license plate number,” Williams replied.
“You arranged for him to start looking for those people, right?” Hamilton said.
However, Williams said he just wanted Matthews to be vigilant and denied that he was heading to meet his friend.
He left home in his semiautomatic with a “very large magazine” and accessories in his ute, Hamilton said.
The rifle had a bullet in the chamber.
He said that he was going to bring his prohibited rifle and associated parts to the nearest police officer in Kāwhia for delivery.
He had not called 111 because the agents took too long to arrive and he could reach Kāwhia faster.
However, he carried on with the police cars down the road from the Hauturu school.
“I did not see [a police officer] and I thought the guys were still on the loose, “Williams said.
The jury had previously heard that he was pulled over by police just down the road, without incident, and informed them that he had a rifle in the ute.
