Jhia Harmony Te Tua

Killed by Hayden John Wallace, Karl Unuka Check, Ranji Tane Forbes, Godfrey Thomas Muraahi, Erueti Chase Nahona, Richard Anthony Puohotaua, Luke John Check, Tyrone Temappi Box and James William Challis. After a day of confrontations between members of the Mongrel Mob and Black Power gangs, Karl was the planner, and Ranji the driver when Hayden fired three shots into the Puriri Street home of Josh Te Tua and his partner Ria Gardiner at Gonville in Whanganui. One of the bullets went through the lounge window, and through a couch where Jhia was sleeping. Ria dove for the floor, pulling Jhia with her, but it was too late, the bullet had entered Jhia's front right side by her pectoral muscle, and exited through her rear left side after passing through her lungs, heart, and ribs. Jhia had died within seconds. Source: https://debbiemccauleyauthor.wordpress.com/biographies/new-zealand-....

"The word came that Jhia’s ashes were ready to come back to the marae. Tipi put the call out to the kapa haka team and as the guys gathered they did so less as Black Power and more so as Maori than was possible the day before. Pakeha psychologists should study what it is that happens within a person when they connect with their inner selves through haka and express their deepest emotions. It is visceral. In the Maori world the representation of the child as represented by her ashes still meant she was with us. Ria and Josh cradled her little casket and, as Tipi led the haka powhiri, time was suspended and we entered the realm of the metaphysical. That night there were prayers and necessary korero. There were long and complex recounting of whakapapa and linking as the tributaries to this mokopuna’s existence were acknowledged and celebrated. Josh and Ria sat there and listened. Ria is again hapu and these ancestral lines are also exactly those of the child yet to be born. What will be this child’s future? Late that night, sitting out the front of the house I say to Josh “Brother, no one will think badly of you if you put your patch down. You have another baby on the way brother. Do what is right for your whanau”." - Denis O'Reilly. Source: https://www.nzedge.com/magazine/those-that-have-ears-let-them-hear.

Hayden John Wallace, 27, and Karl Unuka Check, 26, were sentenced to life imprisonment by Justice Warwick Gendall, who imposed a minimum non-parole period of 15 years for the murder of the toddler in a gang-related drive by shooting in May 2007. Wallace was found to have been the one who fired the fatal shots into the Gonville home of Black Power member Josh Te Tua, killing two year-old Jhia who was sleeping on the couch. Check was the planner, and Forbes the driver, the court was told. Source: 4theKids.