'Killing him was of no use to me': Murder-accused told police he only meant to 'scare' man

Warning: This story includes details of a violent death and may be distressing.

After murder-accused Piripi Tukaokao led police across a remote rural property to where a 28-year-old man was buried, he said a karakia.

It was reportedly the second time he had said a karakia for Harley Shrimpton, the man who owed him a drug debt.

The first karakia had been just after Tukaokao shot Shrimpton in the chest.

The now 23-year-old told police that after burying Shrimpton’s body near a creek on a Poripori Rd property outside of Tauranga, he didn’t return to the burial site.

That is, not until after he’d admitted shooting Shrimpton, and had decided he wanted to help get the dead man’s body “back to his family”.

Tukaokao is on trial in the High Court at Rotorua, charged with kidnapping and murdering Shrimpton.

The court has heard he told police the gun he’d used to “scare” Shrimpton into paying a drug debt had “gone off” by accident.

After seeing Shrimpton lying on a shed floor with a shot to the chest, he panicked.

He went outside for fresh air, and when he went back in, Shrimpton had “looked like he was dead”.

Tukaokao left, and later returned to move and bury Shrimpton’s body. It’s alleged that Tuara Heke, 21, helped him do this – Heke denies this.

However, Heke has pleaded guilty to a charge related to cleaning the shed where Shrimpton was shot.

Tukaokao didn’t tell police who, or if anyone, helped him move the body.

However, he did say some of Shrimpton’s clothes had come off when the body was moved.

Harley Shrimpton was killed on a rural property in the Western Bay of Plenty in 2023. Photo / NZ Police

“I thought about taking the rest of his clothes off and burning everything, but I couldn’t do it. It seemed like me deliberately taking things from him would be even more tapu than it already was.”

‘He had something he wanted to get off his chest’ senior Detective says

Tukaokao spoke to Detective Senior Sergeant Rob Lemoto, who gave evidence at the trial.

After Tukaokao had spoken to another detective, Tukaokao asked to speak to Lemoto specifically.

Lemoto made him a coffee, took him to a courtyard, and re-read him his rights, which Tukaokao confirmed he understood, and then became emotional.

“He was wiping his eyes and it was pretty obvious that he had something that he wanted to get off his chest,” Lemoto said.

Detective Senior Sergeant Rob Lemoto.

Tukaokao told Lemoto he was “scared”, which Lemoto assumed was a reference to gang members, as Tukaokao is a patched Greazy Dogs MC member.

“But he said to me, that that’s not what he was scared of. He was scared of being called a murderer, of being able to talk to or look his family in the eyes.”

Lemoto said he explained that it was pretty obvious Tukaokao could give Shrimpton’s family some closure.

Police had seen, on CCTV footage, Shrimpton get into Tukaokao’s car at the Mount Maunganui McDonald’s on November 3, 2023, and he had not been seen again.

Lemoto said Tukaokao was upset when said he “wanted to get him home to his family”.

“That it was an accident, that he didn’t want him to die, he didn’t want it to happen, that he wanted to make it right, that it wasn’t murder, it was an accident, that it shouldn’t have happened that way.”

Tukaokao told police it was too hard to describe where Shrimpton had been buried, but he could “show them”.

As they made their way out to Poripori in heavy traffic, Lemoto thanked Tukaokao for being honest and asked what condition Shrimpton was in.

“He indicated that there had been one shot. He indicated to his chest with his left hand,” Lemoto said.

“He stated Harley had tried to grab [the shotgun] and he had only initially had the gun to intimidate. He stated he didn’t even remember pulling the trigger.”

They arrived at the property, as rain was falling lightly, and made their way across a paddock, down a bank, over a stream, and up the other side to where the burial site was.

“Once we got there, he became a bit emotional,” Lemoto said.

Tukaokao said a karakia in te reo Māori, and Lemoto had asked him what he’d said.

“It was an acknowledgment of what had happened. He said he wanted to apologise to Harley and his whānau, and he wanted to seek forgiveness.”

Tuara Heke, 21, and Piripi Tukaokao, 23, are on trial in the High Court at Rotorua.

Back at the Tauranga police station, Tukaokao gave a formal statement.

He said Shrimpton initially owed him $2000, but it grew to $5000, and it wasn’t the first time Shrimpton had owed him money.

“It was my own that time, so I let him get away with it.

“But this time it wasn’t my stuff, so I needed him to know I was serious about getting the money back to me so I could pay the person that stuff actually belonged to,” Tukaokao said.

“That’s why I needed to scare him, because otherwise he wouldn’t have paid me ... I needed the money and was only interested in getting back. Killing him was of no use to me because I still had a debt to pay.”

He would not say who he owed money to.

He concluded his police interview by saying the only reason he was there was to give Shrimpton’s whānau answers, and said he wanted to be able to “look my own whānau in the face and tell them I’m sorry Tukaokao – I never wanted this”.

Tukaokao, who is represented by Rebekah Webby and Nicholas Dutch, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated robbery, kidnapping and murder.

Co-defendant Heke, who is represented by Bill and Rita Nabney, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated robbery and being an accessory after the fact to murder, denying helping Tukaokao move Shrimpton’s body.

However, he has admitted to cleaning the shed where the shooting took place, as well as attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The trial continues.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.