Johnny Pukerua Joachim was sentenced to life imprisonment for beating his seven-year-old stepson so badly that the boy died of his injuries.

Nelson schoolboy Duwayne Pailegutu was beaten to death by his stepfather because he failed to bring a jersey home from school. For the first time, his killer's chilling confession to police can be revealed. Blair Ensor reports as part of the Faces of Innocents series.

Johnny Pukerua Joachim sits in a small, windowless, room at Nelson police station hours after the death of his stepson.

The detective sitting opposite him, Karl Parfitt, asks: "What are you guilty of?"



"Murder," Joachim answers. "Killing my [stepson] that's what."

Supplied Police interview Johnny Pukerua Joachim in July 2008.

The confession came at the end of a 40-minute interview on July 2, 2008, where Joachim, aged 37 at the time, detailed the abuse he inflicted on 7-year-old Duwayne Pailegutu.

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​Joachim is wearing a black beanie, a red Adidas sweatshirt, jeans and the pair of shoes that he'd used to kick his stepson with inside a small weatherboard flat on Fergusson St in Stoke.

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Earlier that day, after emergency services were called to the Housing NZ property, Joachim initially claimed Duwayne had hurt himself during a fall in the bath three days earlier.

But during the video-taped interview with Parfitt, which was never played to a jury, Joachim held his head in his hands at times as he revealed how he had beaten the boy and then left him to slowly suffocate on his own blood.

"Why?" Parfitt asks.



"He got a hiding because of his attitude, not listening and not doing what we were saying to him," Joachim answers.



"He allowed someone to just take his jumper from him [at school] and he kept on telling so many stories about what happened to his jumper and he wouldn't even own up."

Duwayne Pailegutu was killed in Nelson in 2008.

Joachim told Parfitt he woke on June 24 to find Duwayne had left for Nayland Primary School without doing his chores and became angry.



He picked up his stepson from school about midday then beat him at the Fergusson St flat over the course of an hour while "trying to explain to him how important it was to tell the truth instead of spinning all these stories".

According to the police summary of facts, Joachim hit Duwayne around the head, arms and upper body. He threw the boy against walls and a wardrobe in his bedroom and struck him repeatedly on the hands and soles of his feet with a wooden cricket wicket.

Then, as Duwayne cowered in the corner of the room, Joachim kicked him in the head, legs and upper body while wearing a pair of leather shoes with heavy soles.

After the beating, the boy was left in his room until his mother, Mary Riki, arrived home from work about 3.30pm.

'I SCREAMED, I CRIED'

Riki and Joachim had moved to Nelson from Auckland about six months earlier, not long after they married. The couple, both Cook Islanders, were employed by New Zealand King Salmon. Riki worked day shift and Joachim worked at night. Their relationship was violent.

Police at the family home after Duwayne Pailegutu's murder. Photo: MARTIN DE RUYTER/FAIRFAX NZ

Riki, speaking publicly for the first time about the case, remembers Joachim telling her he had attacked her son for being disobedient.

She ran to Duwayne's room and found him semi-conscious, incontinent, struggling to breathe and partially paralysed down his left side after suffering a stroke.



"I screamed and I cried and I ran to [try and] call the ambulance ... but he [Joachim] had scooped my son up in his arms and held him in front of me and said if I called [for help] then I wouldn't see my son again," Riki says.



She believed that meant "he would kill my son in front of my face".





For the next eight days, Duwayne was kept at the Fergusson St flat. Riki took the week off work to care for her son and Joachim made her phone Nayland Primary School and lie about his absence.



Riki says that she wanted to get help for her son, but was living in fear of what Joachim would do if she did. He assaulted her on at least one occasion when she raised concerns and ripped the phone from the wall on another.



"I just didn't know what to do," she says. "I was very afraid, scared and alone."

The summary of facts says Joachim told her that he could make the boy better through his own treatment, which included forcing the child to vomit, in an attempt to cure his internal bleeding, and dipping his paralysed foot in scalding hot water to "shock" the limb.



On July 2, Riki went to work while Joachim, who had worked nightshift, slept.





Johnny Joachim outside Nelson District Court after murdering his stepson Duwayne Pailegutu.



He was woken about 10.30am by Duwayne, who was struggling for breath. The boy's condition deteriorated and when Riki phoned about 11.30am he told her to get home urgently.



When she arrived, Riki found Joachim doing CPR on Duwayne who was not breathing. She called 111, but police and paramedics were unable to save her son's life.



An autopsy revealed 10 deep bruises to Duwayne's scalp and a subdural haemorrhage on the right side of his brain. The boy's body bore 75 bruises and several scalding injuries, including a large blister on his right foot.

GOOD SENSE MISSING

The couple's failure to seek medical help for Duwayne meant he slowly suffocated on his own blood.



Child Youth and Family confirmed it received two notifications about the family, but nothing that suggested the boy's life was in danger.

Nelson police at the Fergusson St scene. Photo: MARTIN DE RUYTER/FAIRFAX NZ

Joachim pleaded guilty to murder two months later and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 18 years.



At a separate hearing, Riki admitted failing to provide Duwayne with the necessities of life and was jailed for three years.



"You were vulnerable to being oppressed by an abusive partner. Nevertheless, during the times when he was at work, when you weren't under his immediate control, your good sense should have asserted itself," Judge Phil Gittos told the court at the time.



Riki, who was released from prison a year into her sentence, says she is haunted by her decision not to seek medical treatment for her son and has contemplated suicide.

"I feel that I'm the one that should have died," she says.



"The pain of losing a child, it's unbearable."

'DON'T WAIT. DON'T BE AFRAID'

Riki, now aged 34, says that when she first met Joachim he was "a charmer who I thought was a very good person". It was only after they moved from Auckland to Nelson to escape a life of drug and alcohol abuse that he became abusive and controlling.

Violence was normal to Riki, who grew up seeing her father beat her mother. Joachim would hit Duwayne when he didn't do what he was told. The child suffered three broken ribs during a beating about six weeks before his death.

Mary Riki was jailed for three years for failing to provide her son with the necessities of life. Photo: MARTIN DE RUYTER/FAIRFAX NZ

Riki says she knew the abuse Joachim inflicted on her son was wrong, but she had no one in Nelson to turn to.

"I just didn't know what to do or who to trust"

Riki wishes she had put her son's life ahead of her own and found a way to get help. She urges others in violent relationships to do the same.

"Report abuse or go get help straight away. Don't wait. Don't be afraid. By the time I did it was too late."

Riki says she thinks about Duwayne every day. She remembers him as a bright, energetic boy who was "full of life" and good at sport.

"He was very loving and kind."

She misses her son's smile, laughter and his "hugs and kisses".

Riki says she hates Joachim for what he did to her son.

The pair are divorced and have not spoken since he was jailed.

Defence lawyer Mark Dollimore, who represented Joachim, says the case is arguably the worst he's dealt with in his 23-year career. The level of cruelty inflicted on Duwayne "just blew my mind", he says.

"It just brought out again that none of us know what the hell goes on in homes of people. A lot of horrible stuff happens."