'Time was up': Jury returns verdicts in trial over drug-debt murder

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

“Time was up, and the consequence was given.”

The “consequence” for Harley Shrimpton, who owed a drug debt to a Greazy Dog gang member, was a gunshot to the chest, which the Crown said was “no accident”.

Now, a jury has agreed.

Piripi Tukaokao, 23, has been on trial for just over three weeks in the High Court at Rotorua, charged with aggravated robbery, kidnapping and murder.

The gang member admitted to police he shot Shrimpton and led them to his buried body near Tauranga, but claimed the death was an accident.

Crown solicitor Anna Pollett told the jury that any attack of conscience on Tukaokao’s part did not change his intent when he pulled the trigger.

Tukaokao’s lawyer Rebekah Webby said there remained doubt about the alleged planning and premeditation of her client’s actions.

She asked the jury to consider why Tukaokao would kidnap the 28-year-old using a car easily traced back to him, take Shrimpton to a property Tukaokao was connected with, and deliberately shoot him in a shed about 250m from a grave site – which Pollett suggested may have been pre-dug.

Webby said the jury should believe what Tukaokao told police – that it was an accident – noting that without his admissions, “we would not have the body of Mr Shrimpton” and “we might not even be here”.

Her client claimed he’d only wanted to scare Shrimpton into paying a drug debt.

But Pollett said Shrimpton had missed “deadline, after deadline, after deadline” and warnings had been given, with Tukaokao messaging that it was not a “f***ing game” and Shrimpton could “get shot” over the non-payment and failure to “clock in”.

By early November 2023, it was clear to Tukaokao that the “repayment was never coming, the end of the road had been reached”, she said.

This afternoon, the jury found Tukaokao guilty on all charges, including murder.

They found co-defendant Tuara Heke guilty of helping him move the body to the burial site and of an aggravated robbery.

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

House call no ‘cup-of-tea moment’

Early on the morning of November 3, 2023, a friend of Shrimpton’s woke to a tapping on his Pāpāmoa flat door.

He found two masked men standing there, asking for Shrimpton.

The friend said there was “implied force” and he let them in and handed over his phones, saying if he hadn’t, he “may not be sitting here today”.

Webby said the men were only there to find Shrimpton – they hadn’t forced their way in or assaulted the man, and any fear the man felt was because of a “misunderstanding”; he thought one of the masked men was someone else who had previously assaulted Shrimpton.

Tukaokao and the other man hadn’t worn gang attire, which would have been more intimidating, and only took the phones as a means of contacting Shrimpton.

Pollett said the friend was “nothing short of terrified” and it was “no cup-of-tea moment”.

The Crown’s case was that the second man in attendance was co-defendant Heke, which Heke denied.

The Crown case was that a mask and white gloves recovered from Heke’s address were used in the kidnapping, but defence lawyer Bill Nabney said they did not match the description given by Shrimpton’s friend.

The friend said one of the men had been wearing a Halloween-style mask with black fabric – a variation of the “Scream mask” – and white gloves.

Nabney said a silver mask found at Heke’s address looked nothing like a Scream mask – there was no fabric attached and it didn’t have an open mouth.

He also said there was no phone location data placing Heke at the Pāpāmoa address.

When it came to the mask, Pollett said the focus should not be on the differences, but on the similarities, which were “remarkable” given the trauma he went through.

The mask and gloves the Crown alleges were worn by Tuara Heke in an aggravated robbery before the death of Harley Shrimpton, whom the Crown alleges was murdered over an unpaid drug debt.

She said his reference to glitter on the mask could have been its gold markings, and the mask may have appeared white in that light.

A McDonald’s kidnapping

The Crown said Tukaokao “lured” Shrimpton to Tauranga’s Sulphur Point, through messages from the friend’s phone.

When Shrimpton saw him, he and his friends took off in their car.

Tukaokao caught up with them at the Mount Maunganui McDonald’s, where they’d parked up to use the Wi-Fi; Tukaokao pulled in and blocked in their car.

One of Shrimpton’s friends said Tukaokao came over to their car and fluctuated between being “real violent” and calm.

Ultimately, Shrimpton got out of the car and into the blue Toyota Prius Tukaokao was driving.

The Crown said it was clear to Shrimpton’s friends he was scared and didn’t want to go.

“[Tukaokao] would not have to block the vehicle in the McDonald’s carpark had there been free consent,” Pollett said.

Webby pointed to the behaviour of the others in the car – they did not go to the police or raise the alarm, which did not support it being a kidnapping.

She said Shrimpton could be seen still on the phone while getting into Tukaokao’s car, which also suggested it hadn’t been a kidnapping.

A murder, or an attempt-to-scare gone wrong?

Tukaokao, who had sourced a shotgun days earlier, took Shrimpton to the shed at the Poripori property where he had left the loaded weapon.

Shrimpton was shot in the chest and the Crown said this was what Tukaokao intended to do.

The gun used to shoot Harley Shrimpton was the focus at the start of the third week of the High Court trial over Shrimpton's death.

The defence said the shot happened during a struggle and the pair may have been having a “tug of war” when it was fired.

The Crown argued it was “implausible” that Shrimpton would have pulled the gun towards his chest – he would surely have batted it away.

Pollett said Shrimpton’s death was an example to others as to what happens when you don’t pay your debts to the gang.

The defence said Shrimpton was no good to Tukaokao dead, with his debt unpaid.

Webby said there was “no evidence” that he would not have been able to pay.

She said all he would have needed to do was to sell more drugs, which was how debts in the drug and gang underworld were often dealt with.

Shrimpton had managed it before, and she said there was nothing to suggest he wouldn’t have been able to do it again.

A burial, a shed clean-up, and a gun thrown in a swamp

The final aspect of the offending covered what happened after the fatal shot.

The Crown said Heke went to Poripori Rd and helped move the body. They relied on his phone location data and the fact moving the body was not a “one-person job”.

Nabney said Heke had already pleaded guilty to a charge relating to him cleaning the shed, but denied moving the body.

Nabney said the phone location data, and the margin of error around the phone’s “pin drop” that the Crown said placed Heke near the burial site, didn’t prove he had moved the body.

He also said location data suggested Terrance Hayes, who supplied the shotgun, had also been at the property that night.

Hayes disposed of the gun in a swamp in Bethlehem. He took his own life in December 2023, soon after Shrimpton’s body was recovered following Tukaokao’s admissions to police.

Hayes left behind a note telling police where they could find the firearm.

Heke pleaded guilty, on the morning of trial, to a charge of perverting the course of justice, which related to getting his sister to go to Australia so she couldn’t be spoken to by police, and of accessory after the fact to murder, which related to the shed cleaning.

The pair will be sentenced in October.

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.