Man who died fleeing police jailed 18 years ago for fatally stabbing a teenager

A man who died yesterday fleeing the police in Horowhenua was jailed 18 years ago for fatally stabbing a teenager in the heart.

Steven Hoani Bunyan, 43, from Ōtaki, was detained by police near Manakau yesterday afternoon.

Bunyan stopped his vehicle, but when an officer approached the car, Bunyan sped down State Highway 1.

Police did not pursue the vehicle and soon after came across Bunyan’s crashed car at the intersection of SH1 and Kuku Beach Rd at 1:28 p.m.

Bunyan died at the scene. The driver of another vehicle involved in the accident appeared unharmed, but was taken by ambulance to the hospital for observation.

The accident shut down SH1, causing significant delays for motorists, and is now under investigation.

Tonight, the police confirmed the identity of the dead man as Bunyan.

Police declined to comment, but the Herald understands that Bunyan was jailed for six years in 2003 for stabbing Highbury teenager Wiremu Waho to death in the heart in Palmerston North.

Waho, 18, was killed at a party when he tried to stop a fight between Bunyan’s girlfriend, a Black Power associate, and another woman with Mongrel Mob affiliations.

Bunyan, who had lived in New Plymouth at the time, was convicted of manslaughter.

About 1,000 mourners packed the Kawiu Marae in Levin to bid Waho farewell before his body was taken to his family’s cemetery, TVNZ reported at the time.

“You may be gone my brother, but you are still here, still in our hearts where it means the most … you will never be forgotten,” Waho’s brother Jason Waho said in tangi.