Another Victim of Child Abuse

2020-12-12 18:15:35 Written by Umar Saif

Here's another awful New Zealand Crime story for those that are curious. Read at your own risk.

 

The Moko Rangitoheriri abuse and murder case

 

Moko Sayviah Rangitoheriri perished on August 10, 2010, from injuries he obtained during prolonged abuse and torture. His case stunned, depressed and angered New Zealanders and led to rallies in his name against child abuse. Today his murderers, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, will be sentenced. This is Moko's story.

This story includes detailed explanations of the abuse Moko endured which could be upsetting. Please take care.

 

He lay on a resuscitation table. His eyes were so puffy that the nurse could not lift the lids to check his pupils. His little body was cold - so cold that equipments used for measuring body temperature would not take a reading. He had bite marks on his face, his belly was jutting unnaturally and he was wrapped from head to toe in bruises and abrasions. The little boy was so painfully brutalised that he did not survive. At 10 pm on August 10 last year, he was declared dead. His name was Moko Rangitoheriri. He was 3 years old. A post-mortem analysis was carried out and ascertained that the Tokoroa toddler perished as a result of "multiple blunt force traumas".

He had incisions and haemorrhaging deep within his abdomen, historic bruising and harm to his bowel. Combined, that resulted in his bowel rupturing. Fecal matter leaked into Moko's abdomen, resulting in septic shock.

His brain was swollen, he had blood clots under his scalp affecting several injuries caused at different times in the lead up to his demise. There was proof the toddler had been smothered. His body was a veritable map of torture - Moko had human bite marks, contusions, abrasions, deep bruising, lacerations, patterned traumas on his face, chin, neck, ears, lower lip, gums, eyes, ribs, testes, skin, chest, tummy, shoulder, arms. Moko was a small boy with a big smile and a lot of life left to live. But that was taken away from him by David Haerewa and Tania Shailer who gradually and systematically harm, tortured and abused Moko. Then, when his little body could take no more, they left him to die. 

 

The outset of the end

Moko Sayviah Rangitoheriri was born in October 2012 to Nicola Dally-Paki and Jordan Rangitoheriri. Ms Dally-Paki had a son and daughter before Moko came along. When her youngest boy was very little, her eldest became sick and needed to roam to Auckland for medication at Starship Hospital. She couldn't have the younger children with her at the hospital so Moko and his sister were left in the supervision of whanau. The pair spent time in Hawke's Bay and then moved in with their mum's friend in Taupo - Tania Shailer. Ms Dally-Paki met Shailer, then a caretaker at Kohunga Reo, when she was 16. When Shailer took in Moko and his sister she had four children of her aged between 2 and 7 and was living with her partner David Haerewa. A source said the Herald that Haerewa had been in and out of jail "most of his life" but in June 2015 he was "doing well". Shailer was also in a decent place, the source said. She'd had difficulties in the past and turned to a Maori women's refuge to help her flee a brutal life in 2013. They enabled her to move to Taupo and discover a house. The refuge proceeded to work with Shailer in 2015. Social worker Trina Marama told Shailer enrolled Moko's sister into one of her refuge classes in June 2015. The girl was always nicely dressed, with a homemade lunch. Mrs Marama never met Moko but came under fire after his demise when a media report indicated she had been told by the little girl about the mishandling her brother was enduring.

"There were no signs or alarming signs that Moko was being abused," Mrs Marama told Maori TV's Native Affairs programme.

Shailer was in normal contact with Ms Dally-Paki until two weeks before Moko's casualty.

"Her phone was off and I couldn't call to talk to him. Those are indications that I should've picked up on," Ms Dally-Paki would later tell TV3's Story.

Court papers summarize what occurred in the two months Moko lived with Shailer and Haerewa - the last two months of his life.

For some reason, they started to hate the little boy and their "animosity" boosted.

Here would later tell police that he didn't like Moko's "ways" and he was furious that the 3-year-old took him and Shailer "for granted". A culture of riot against Moko developed.

Shailer would whack, kick and slap Moko. On one occasion another kid in the house saw her biting the toddler multiple times on his face and arms. She bit him so hard that his skin would break and he would bleed. Meanwhile, Haerewa got into a "routine" of picking on Moko. He shoved, slapped, threw and booted the little boy, and sometimes whack him with a jandal. "He didn't want Moko around him ... didn't like Moko in his existence and would always have him in time out," the summary said. Time out for Moko was being put in the toilet for hours at a time, on his own. It seems Haerewa abused Moko whenever he could. In a horrible twist, he is not the only child abuser in his family. He is the uncle of Benny Haerewa, who murdered 4-year-old James Whakaruru. James was systematically beaten for various years before the fatal attack in 1999. Benny Haerewa was sentenced of manslaughter and at sentencing, it arose that he had earlier served prison time for whipping James when the youngster was just 2 years old.

 

The killing of Moko

It was around August 5 when the pair began to kill Moko. The abuse escalated to a degree of no return. Shailer battered repeatedly on Moko's tummy with "significant force". Moko snorted, expelling bursts of air as the adult who was presumed to be looking after for him brought her foot down - hard - again and again. After the assault, Moko lost control of his bowel.

Here would later say police that they made Moko sit on paper and plastic because he "kept sh**ting". At some level around this time, Moko endured a disastrous head injury. It has not been ascertained who of Shailer and Haerewa dealt the blow but it resulted in swelling on Moko's brain and, combined with earlier head traumas and the assault on his abdomen, left the boy with little possibility of survival. By August 6 it was obvious little Moko was in difficulty. "As the week advanced he came to be increasingly unwell. He was defecating spontaneously often, incapable to control his bowels," the overview disclosed. His face started to damage, consistent with a serious head injury, and he was vomiting.

Moko was left in his bedroom all day that Sunday. He pleaded for water and the first time Haerewa gave him some, but after that, his requests were dismissed. Here kept abusing the boy, despite his worsening health.

"In particular he hit Moko in the lower back after he had defecated, then rubbed the faeces in Moko's face," the court heard.

"He then washed Moko with such force that he eliminated scabs from his body. Moko was crying out in pain and Haerewa covered Moko's mouth to silence him."

While in the shower Moko fell and was hardly eligible to stand up. Here could see the boy was getting awful. He dried Moko, put him in a nappy and "chucked" him back in his room.

No one did anything to help the small boy. His breathing was laboured. His belly was beginning to get hard from his undiagnosed inner injuries. Still, no one did anything to help him. Shailer left the house and took her children to school. She wasted the remainder of the morning at home with Haerewa and then left the house again just before midday to follow a course. At 2.20 pm she got a ride home with a friend and asked to stop at a pharmacy. There, she attempted to buy an EpiPen - a device used for inoculating a measured dose or doses of epinephrine. Most frequently used for the therapy of anaphylaxis the pens are carried by serious allergy sufferers. Shailer was told that the pens were not reserved but one could be ordered. She refused and went home. In the car, she said her mate that Moko had "fallen from the woodpile" the day before. He was "okay", she said. The friend said Shailer to get the little boy tested at Taupo Hospital in case he had a head injury and proposed to drive them there. Shailer said no. Just before 3 pm, she was dropped off at home. She and Haerewa then agreed to try and revive Moko. Shailer gave the boy mouth-to-mouth while Haerewa picked their children up from school. At 3 pm Shailer picked up the phone and called 111. Four days had now passed since she had battered on the child. Moko knockdown from a woodpile yesterday, she told the operator. He sustained "serious bruising", but had been okay up until now, she told. Moko was now "absolutely cold, unconscious, not breathing properly" and his stomach was "really hard". Paramedics came minutes later to discover little Moko lying face down in the hallway. Shailer was leaning by his feet. The paramedic took one glance at Moko, his traumas and near-dead condition, scooped the 3-year-old up from the floor and hurried him straight to the emergency department. Hours later he was dead. What Moko's sister saw After Moko perished, his mother disclosed that her 7-year-old daughter had seen much of the abuse meted out to the toddler. 

"She told me Moko had been shut in the bathroom for two weeks," Ms Dally-Paki told Story. "She'd try and stay home from school to try and feed my son because they were hungering him." The 7-year-old, who cannot be named for formal reasons, told Ms Dally-Paki that she had pleaded Shailer and Haerewa to quit abusing her baby brother. "She said he was shut in the bathroom for two weeks, and that she tried to use toilet paper to wipe his bleeding eyes "She tried everything to maintain him. She was said to tell the police that she had hurt Moko. Ms Dally-Paki's daughter was not limited from the attacks. "She said [Shailer] used to whack [her] in the face when she'd smile, and drag her by the hair to get to school."

"They brainwashed her, they psychologically twisted her, and made her partake in the violence." The Herald contacted Ms Dally-Paki and Mr Rangitoheriri for comment ahead of the sentencing of their son's murderers. Neither reacted. Police noted on behalf of the family, who pursued privacy during a "very difficult time".