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Man guilty of girlfriend's shotgun murder

Author
NZN,
Publish Date
Wed, 28 Mar 2018, 2:34PM
Turiarangi Tai has been found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Chozyn Koroheke in April 2017. (Photo \ NZ Herald)
Turiarangi Tai has been found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Chozyn Koroheke in April 2017. (Photo \ NZ Herald)

Man guilty of girlfriend's shotgun murder

Author
NZN,
Publish Date
Wed, 28 Mar 2018, 2:34PM

An enraged Auckland man who used a shotgun to blast his 22-year-old girlfriend in front of her brother has been found guilty of murder by a High Court jury.

Seemingly angered after yet another argument with girlfriend Chozyn Koroheke and finding his car empty of petrol, Turiarangi Tai last April burst into into a room where she was sheltering with her brother and another woman.

Saying, "you f*** bitch", he then allegedly jabbed Koroheke on the head with the shotgun barrel before lowering it and shooting her in the stomach.

Despite paramedics arriving at the scene just minutes later, Koroheke died.

On Wednesday after almost two days deliberating, a High Court at Auckland jury before unanimously found Tai guilty of murder.

A 25-year-old woman, whose name cannot be published, was found not guilty of being an accessory to the murder, after she ordered a taxi for 23-year-old Tai when he arrived at her house shortly after the killing.

Koroheke's family sobbed in the gallery as the verdict was read.

During the trial, there was never any question whether Tai shot and killed Koroheke.

His lawyer Peter Kaye instead argued Tai had not intended to kill his girlfriend and couldn't remember pulling the trigger.

Tai's shock and remorse after the shooting could be heard in the background of a 111 call in which he implored the injured Koroheke not to die, saying "stay with me baby", "fight".

Kaye said it was a sign that despite a rocky relationship, exacerbated by drug and alcohol use, Tai and Koroheke shared genuinely tender moments and he did not want her dead.

However, prosecutors argued the murder was the final chapter in a short and violent relationship.

In the days before the shooting, on April 4, 2017, Tai beat Koroheke about the head with a rock, prosecutor Mark Williams said.

A month before that, he stabbed her in the thigh, he said.

On the day of Koroheke's death, the couple had been fighting again before Tai burst into the small bedroom and shot her.

And while remorseful after the shooting, Tai quickly became more concerned with his own "preservation" as he fled the scene when emergency services arrived, Williams said.

He could be seen a short time later on a petrol station's security camera "shamelessly" using Koroheke's bank card to buy fuel, cigarettes and a drink, Williams said.

After two weeks evading police he handed himself in.

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