Pensioner who died after fire escaped earlier blaze, but wouldn't leave his home
When the first of three fires was lit at pensioner Ian Moller’s block of flats he had to be helped out of his upstairs unit and was covered in so much soot he was black.
Police urged the 82-year-old to stay elsewhere but he said he preferred to stay at the Kāinga Ora flats where he’d lived for 23 years.
But when another fire was lit in November 2024 he wasn’t so lucky and he died in Wellington Hospital from smoke inhalation several days later.
It was the third suspicious fire in the space of a month, all of which were allegedly started by Molotov cocktails.
Now, three gang members sit accused of arson and Moller’s murder at a jury trial in the High Court at Wellington.
They deny the charges and their lawyers have urged the jury to keep an open mind.
Today’s evidence focused on the first and second fires which were lit in the early hours of October 10 and 14, 2024.
Moller wasn’t taken to hospital after the first fire, but he was treated by paramedics at the scene for smoke inhalation.
The jury was shown pictures of blackened walls and floor in the stairwell and first-floor landing, near the entrance to Moller’s flat.
Also on the landing, first responders found a stubbie bottle with a piece of towel hanging out of it, remnants of a Molotov cocktail.
Volunteer firefighter Patrick Williams, who was called to the second report of a fire at the back of the flats four days after the first, told of finding three small fires burning in the backyard.
The Crown says the second fire started as a result of Molotov cocktails being thrown at the rear of the building. But they didn’t take hold because of the bad weather that night.
Williams said he found the remnants of a jerry can and beer bottles and fabric in the three small fires.
Two f****** guys ran in there and set it on fire
The jury also heard the 111 calls from resident Te Aroha Kimura, who reported both the first and second fires.
“It’s gone out now, but two f****** guys ran in there and set it on fire,” she told the operator when she reported the first fire in the early hours of October 10.
Asked if she knew who was responsible, Kimura said she knew one of the men, but refused to be put through to the police.
Later that night she told police she saw two men leaving the scene, describing one as a young Pākehā, and the second as Māori man in his mid-forties.
Despite being told the fire was out, the fire service dispatched firefighters to the scene.
Gang-related
One of the firefighters who attended the first fire told the court of being approached by a Māori woman.
Stokes Valley’s chief fire officer Alan Capplemann said the woman told him the fire was gang-related as she’d recently taken in the girlfriend of a gang member who’d beaten her up.
When the gang member had come looking for her, she’d told him she wasn’t there, adding that she didn’t think he’d believed her.
Mangu Kaha gang members Arden Neho, Reardon Kamaru and Henare Barber are charged with arson and Moller’s murder.
Neho also faces two additional charges in relation to the October fires.
The trial before Justice David Boldt is estimated to take five weeks.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.
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