Napier murder attempt: man stabbed ex 15 times in parked car

A man who stabbed his ex-girlfriend at least 15 times in Napier just two months after being released from a jail sentence for another assault on the woman has pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

Jordan Peter Rawiri Nuku, 35, admitted it when he appeared before Judge Jan-Marie Doogue in Napier Superior Court on Tuesday. He was placed in preventive custody for his sentence on March 5.

The attack occurred late on a sunny morning on Saturday March 21 this year when the woman was sitting in a car in front of Te Awa Dairy, near the intersection of Ellison St and Georges Dr, Napier South.

A summary from Crown, prepared for what was to have been a sentencing indication hearing, said that Nuku and the woman had been in a relationship for about 10 years and had a 5-year-old daughter. A “final” protection order was issued in September 2019, five weeks after Nuku went to jail for assaulting the woman and violating an earlier order.

Nuku was released on January 13 this year, and there was some phone and social media contact between the two, but there was no face-to-face contact between him and the mother and daughter prior to the day of the incident.

On the day of the attack, Nuku drove her niece from Hastings to Napier and stopped after seeing the mother’s vehicle parked outside the dairy.

Nuku parked on nearby Chambers St and walked about 80-100 meters toward her ex-partner’s vehicle, spotted her at the wheel, opened the front passenger door, and lunged into the interior of the vehicle, repeatedly stabbing the woman. CCTV footage showed the vehicle rocking as the blows continued for about 40 seconds.

At least 15 wounds were inflicted to the torso and neck before Nuku stopped when the woman opened the door and fell onto the road.

Passersby came to her aid when Nuku escaped and fled the area in the vehicle in which she had arrived, while the injured woman was rushed to Hastings Hospital, where she remained for several days in the Intensive Care Unit, subjected to to two surgeries.

Nuku was found two days later hiding in the trunk of a vehicle driven by a girlfriend, and was heard telling a friend who approached a police vehicle while waiting after being arrested: “I was driving with my niece and I saw her. ., I just lost it, I snapped. “

Although he admitted to police that he had stabbed the woman, he said that he had not brought a knife to the scene and that the weapon was a knife that he had taken from the woman.