Kawhia shooting: wife fled with children on hips as shots rang out in the dark

As four men, two armed, chased her husband, Taryn Williams pushed her two young children out of a bedroom window before propping them on each hip and running for their lives.

She kept running as she and her children began hearing gunshots in the distance from her home on Harbor Rd, a few miles from Hauturu School just after 3:30 a.m. on June 6, 2019.

Her husband, and now murder defendant, Orren Scott Williams, 37, is on trial in Hamilton Superior Court last week defending the charge, following the death of Faalili Moleli Fauatea, 23, and three other charges. to hurt with the intention of causing serious damage. bodily harm.

The Crown has alleged that Williams sought revenge on the men, alleging that they broke into his home to steal two large bags of cannabis, and that he fired while leaving, fearing for his safety.

Defense attorney Philip Morgan, QC, was able to give a brief description of his case to the jury of six men and six women in court this afternoon.

He denies the men were on the run for their lives, telling the jury that his client was scared by the men who made their way into his home as he helped him find his son for a little more ventilation after he woke up coughing. .

Her son returned from the kitchen to his bedroom when Williams heard a knock on the front door.

“It didn’t sink into what it was,” he told Detective Sergeant Raine in a statement he received on October 10 of last year.

The porch lights were on and he could see a figure standing in the doorway that has two separate panes of glass.

He opened the door a little and saw a person wearing a ski mask and slammed it shut.

The person on the other side began to make his way through the door.

He ran into the living room, grabbed a taiaha, and flung it toward the door, with little effect.

The man kept breaking the object at the front door before they finally managed to get inside.

As they all walked down the hall to the bedroom, Williams threw the taiaha at the last man’s back.

He turned around and pushed Williams away and tried to push him away.

The four men and Williams ended up in a fight in the living room, chasing each other, with Williams trying to defend himself and trying to break free.

Eventually, Williams said he tripped, fell to the ground and stood at the man’s feet with a shotgun, which was pointed at his wife, now crouched next to him.

WIlliams hit the man and ran to the laundry room for his gun closet. When he opened one of the doors, one of the men started kicking in the laundry room door, grabbed a gun and some ammunition, and quickly shoved it into the gun.

Then he looked out a window to see one of the men move. He jumped and saw a car coming down over the livestock stop and down the driveway before stopping on the left.

Williams opened fire and ran out of bullets, before grabbing more and returning to find a man in front of him, Morgan said today.

In a panic, he fired a shot. Williams doesn’t know how many more men or vehicles were outside or what her plan was.

Morgan admitted that one of the men was fatally shot, but said another was “unlucky” to be shot while sitting in the driver’s seat of the car.

Their client did not want to shoot them, but instead fired warning shots into the air and into the car.

“Yes, there was a tragedy, and yes, it had the effect of hitting Shaun Te Kanawa on the arm, and [Joe] Tumaialu in the ankle and Toilolo was unlucky enough to get a bullet fired into the rear of the car and went through the bottom of the rear windshield, through two seats and hitting him. “

It was while these shots were being fired that Taryn Williams had a child on each of her hips, running from the house into the dark.

“She was awakened by these men who were on their way to her house. She went out into the corridor and was confronted by the group who threatened her with the machete and hit her with the pistol, she entered the living room and forced her to fall to the ground and was too terrified to look up “.

It would also give evidence of how, after her husband fled, she heard the men say “take it, take it” and ran after him.

“He jumped out of the room, grabbed his kids, out the window, one on each hip and ran and ran and ran and heard gunshots and ran and heard gunshots and ran.”

He denied that the case was about chapters, as the Crown has presented, instead it was simply “an event involving evil men, with evil deeds on their minds, all prepared … having armed themselves for what they intended to do.”

Morgan told the jury that his client was justified in his actions, that they were self-defense, as he also had no idea where his wife and children were and what had happened to them.

“It is a case that these were men from whom the defendant felt he needed to defend himself and his family by the best means available.

“The defense says that it is not about some men who were retreating, running away or escaping, which is this case, but a man who was confronted by evil men with bad deeds on their minds and that is what he perceived.”

Orren Williams will give his testimony tomorrow morning.

The trial is expected to end this week and is being supervised by Judge Mary Peters.

* Shaun Te Kanawa, Grayson Toilolo and Joe Tumaialu were charged with aggravated robbery for their role in the incident. Te Kanawa and Tumaialu have been convicted, however Toilolo’s case is still before the court. Emma Salvation, who hatched the robbery scheme, was found guilty of robbery and sentenced to 12 months of home detention.