Loved ones of the five people murdered in a deliberately-lit Wellington hostel fire have spoken in court of their lasting grief and the “long shadow of that night”. 

Esarona Lologa will find out his fate today after earlier being found guilty on five counts of murder and one of arson in September for lighting the deadly blaze. 

He unsuccessfully claimed a defence of insanity at trial, saying voices commanded him to light two fires at Loafers Lodge boarding house in Newtown that night. 

The public gallery in the High Court at Wellington is full today with friends and family of the men killed in the hostel: Mike Wahrlich, Liam Hockings, Peter O’Sullivan, Melvin Parun and Kenneth Barnard. 

In a powerful victim impact statement, Parun’s brother, Louis Parun, acknowledged the men who died, those who were injured, and everyone involved in fighting the fire and bringing the case to court. 

“For us, the loss is profound,” he said. “The long shadow of that night will always remain with us.” 

He said Parun was a man of “quiet strength and gentle humour”, and that his sudden, violent death had left the family brokenhearted. 

“I wish to say to the man who lit those fires. I am 81 years old, I’ve lived long enough to see much of life. There’s moments of beauty and there’s depths of sorrow. What you did brought unimaginable pain to many and the loss of five good men whose lives will never return.” 

Parun said he took a “solemn satisfaction” to know that “long after I have departed this earth, you will still be behind bars.” 

Melvin Parun’s daughter, Sophia Parun, also gave an emotional statement, looking angrily at Lologa as he sat in the dock. 

“To ‘your name’ . . . You don’t deserve a single word in my vocabulary or a single letter in my alphabet.” 

Margaret Wahrlich also gave a statement, crying as she spoke of her brother, affectionately known as Mike the juggler. She carried a framed photo of him, as she did throughout the trial. 

“I want you to see my brother’s face and to ensure he is remembered as a person and not a name. Can you look at his photo?” she said to Lologa. 

“How could you take his life from him that he loved so much?” 

Wahrlich described how she hadn’t known where Mike was living at the time of the fire, but that she had walked past Loafers Lodge the morning after the blaze and hoped that wasn’t where he was staying. 

“This day, it plays on my mind that I stood there looking at that very building where my brother’s body was still inside,” she sobbed. 

She said she eventually received the call that Mike had died in the fire, and her heart broke. 

“It has been broken since ,” she said. 

“To know that you selfishly cut his life short is incredibly difficult to accept. . . . What you did was inhumane and no one deserves to go through that.” 

Barnard’s nephew, Nathaniel Johnstone, also spoke, describing how he had grown up knowing his uncle and had lived with him as a young adult. 

He described him as “strikingly open-hearted and genuine” but facing challenges in life that led to him being unable to be housed safely. 

Johnstone said it was unsettling to know that “someone of that character, a really kind and true person and someone who was able to respond to some significant challenges and cruelty in life without becoming malicious and resentful, should come to an end in that way.” 

Fatal fire one of two lit that night 

Lologa had been living at the Loafers Lodge on Adelaide Rd for about a week before lighting a fire in an unused wardrobe, starting the fatal inferno. 

He had started another fire under a couch in the building earlier in the evening, but that had been discovered and extinguished by other residents before it could get out of control. 

The 50-year-old did not dispute lighting the fires, but argued he was not guilty by way of insanity, with his lawyers saying he was suffering a serious psychotic relapse due to his diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia at the time. 

He had absconded from a mental health facility just weeks before the fire. 

The jury of seven women and four men spent four and a half weeks listening to evidence in the trial, including first-hand accounts from firefighters who tackled the blaze, residents who survived the fire, police who arrested and interviewed the defendant, and psychiatrists who assessed his mental health. 

Esarona Lologa was named on September 26 as the person who lit the fire, after being found guilty of murder. Photo / Marty Melville 

Of the six mental health experts who gave their opinions, just one of them – the defence witness – held the opinion that Lologa was insane at the time of lighting the fires. 

Dr Krishna Pillai, for the defence, said he primarily based his opinion on the defendant’s own account of his mental state that night, in which he said voices commanded him to light the fires. 

He agreed on cross-examination the objective evidence, including CCTV footage of the man’s actions and behaviours, did not support this opinion. 

Loafers Lodge hostel was set on fire in May 2023. 

Meanwhile, other psychiatrists said they did not believe he had a defence of insanity available and that he showed signs of having antisocial personality disorder. 

Dr Justin Barry-Walsh said Lologa’s behaviour when he was seriously unwell was more obvious, and that it would have been clear to those around him if he was having a serious relapse. 

The Crown proposed the motive was that Lologa did not like living at Loafers Lodge and burnt it down as a way to get put into different accommodation. 

Sziranyi rejected this claim, saying the jury would have to involve themselves in “massive guesswork and speculation” to agree with it. 

Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.