'We have suffered so much': Family demands answers after psychiatric patient murder
The family of a Christchurch woman murdered by an absconding psychiatric patient is demanding accountability from health authorities. An inquest is investigating why the patient was granted unescorted leave despite a history of violent crime.
Why it matters
This case highlights systemic failures in mental health care and public safety protocols regarding the management of high-risk patients.
The family of a Christchurch woman who was murdered by a patient who absconded from a psychiatric hospital has asked why it took their mother's death for changes to be made at Hillmorton.
Laisa Waka Tunidau was stabbed to death by Zakariye Mohamed Hussein outside her Sockburn home in June 2022.
Hussein was jailed for life with a 13-year non-parole period in November that year and had previously been jailed for more than six years for kidnapping, stabbing and intimidating multiple people across Christchurch in March 2012.
At the time of Waka Tunidau's death, Hussein was allowed to leave Hillmorton Hospital on unescorted community leave.
On Monday, an inquest heard Hussein had left the hospital on 35 occasions and had returned without incident between being granted leave in late April 2022 and the day of Waka Tunidau's murder.
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