Five months after walking free from jail, Dylyn Davis killed his girlfriend.

He beat her to a bloody pulp in the garage of a Hamilton home, enraged that she had sent text messages to a former partner saying she felt unsafe.

Then he walked away, leaving Aroha Kerehoma lying battered and motionless on the floor of the Dominion Rd garage where they lived in Nawton, Hamilton.

DOMINICO ZAPATA/STUFF Aroha Kerehoma lying battered and motionless on the floor of the garage they lived in Dominion Rd, Nawton, Hamilton.

Stuff has learned that Davis was released from central North Island's Rangipo Prison on August 12, 2017 after serving a two years and four and a half month sentence for aggravated robbery.

He was subject to special conditions for six months following that date.

A parole board spokesperson confirmed Davis was released at his sentence end date and was not on parole at the time he killed Davis.

CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF Police investigate after an unexplained death of Sunday at a Dominion road address in Hamilton.

A parole board decision could not be released while the case was still before the courts.

Kerehoma initially survived the brutal assault that Davis subjected her to soon after midnight on Sunday, February 4.

Later that night, as the Crown summary of facts reveals, he told an associate he had killed the 28-year-old Hamilton woman.

FACEBOOK Aroha Kerehoma was killed by Dylyn Davis in a Nawton garage.

"I choked the bitch. She had it coming," he told him.

The associate asked him if he was sure she was dead.

Davis replied: "I made sure I finished the job. I was choking her out while she was gargling on her blood."

On Tuesday morning, Dylyn Mitchell Davis, 25, appeared via audio-video link from prison in the High Court in Hamilton, where he plead guilty to a single charge of murdering Kerehoma.

He was remanded in custody until his sentencing date of May 18 by Justice Sarah Katz.

Davis is now on his third strike for violence convictions, meaning he faces the prospect of life imprisonment without parole.

​He had last appeared in court on March 13, where he made an initial plea of not guilty to the murder charge and was scheduled a trial date for March next year.

Davis and Kerehoma, also known as Aroha Toka, had been in a relationship for about five months when he killed her.

Her last day alive had started without incident. About 2pm that Saturday Davis bought alcohol for a planned evening of drinking and playing music.

Between 7.30pm and midnight, Kerehoma engaged in a text message conversation with her former partner. The conversation was about Davis, and Kerehoma was expressing concerns about him in the texts.

Kerehoma told her former partner she did not feel safe, and did not like staying home with Davis. She also said Davis had been hitting her.

Her final message was sent at 11.58pm.

Not long afterward, Davis took the phone off Kerehoma and checked her messages. He became angry, and then violent, rendering her unconscious to the point where she died from her multiple blunt force head injuries.

A post-mortem examination laid out the damage in stark detail. Her nasal bones had been driven back into her skull cavity. There were fractures of both orbital wall structures around her eyes. There were numerous fractures to the base of her skull and right temporal bone. There were bruises on her brain matter on both sides. There was bruising, abrasions and lacerations to her entire face and scalp and haemorrhaging in both eyes.

There was also bruising to her chest, torso and left shoulder. A CT scan found air in her bowel, suggesting it had been perforated.

The examination report found there was no pattern to the injuries that suggested Davis had used a weapon. They were, however, consistent with the use of fists.

The examining pathologist could not rule out the possibility that the outcome for Kerehoma may have been different, had an ambulance been called immediately.

But Davis did not call an ambulance after beating her to a pulp. Instead, he changed his clothing and walked to an associate's house. Another associate picked him up, and it was to this man that he admitted he had killed Kerehoma.

He then visited another associate and spent the remainder of the night there. He did not return home until 1.30pm on Sunday.

Once there, he phoned an ambulance, telling the operator he had returned home to find his partner beaten.

When ambulance staff arrived, it was clear Kerehoma had been dead for hours.

An examination of Kerehoma's phone revealed that after her last message was sent just before midnight, her former partner had texted her at 12.08am, 12.15am and at 12.31am - all with no response.

A check of Davis' phone found he began a series of phonecalls to his associates at 12.33am.



Flame pointed at dairy owner's face.

It is not the first time Dylyn Davis has made headlines for his violence.

In July 2011 he was jailed for two years for a raft of charges, stemming from incidents on the night of November 26, 2010.

On that night a drunk Davis, armed with a hockey stick, smashed three windows of the Path-lab building in Urlich Ave, Melville, before setting his sights on a dairy owner who was locking up his shop nearby.

Davis walked toward him and lit the spray from an aerosol can, causing a large flame he then directed towards the dairy owner's face.The flame came inches away from the victim's face.

At his sentencing then-Crown prosecutor Sheila Cameron said Davis had told police that he did it for fun.

"That really encapsulates the prisoner's risk to others in the community," she said.

"He is volatile and unpredictable in my submission and his offending appears to be getting worse."

Judge Noel Cocurullo said the incident could have ended in a fatality.

He said Davis had been given chances to rehabilitate time and time again.

"The sad reality ... is that you Mr Davis are not interested in rehabilitating. You might say to your lawyer you are, but you are not."

The judge said there was simply no option but to send Davis to jail.

"That saddens me because of your age."

Judge Cocurullo said the risk of Davis spending a lifetime in prison was very likely if he didn't change his behaviour.