Shop workers killed by colleague’s partner
The partner of an Auckland man who stabbed two pawn shop workers to death thought he looked ’’possessed’’ after carrying out the killings.
Zarn Tarapata, 27, killed Paul Matthews and Paul Fanning because he thought they might be sleeping with the mother of his children.
His defence argues he was legally insane at the time.
A murder trial began at the High Court in Auckland yesterday.
Fanning, 69, and Matthews, 47, died while on their lunch break on Saturday, July 19, 2014.
They were eating noodles in the lunchroom at Ezy Cash on Great South Road in Takanini when Tarapata burst in and stabbed them.
Tarapata’s partner, Tamara Cassie, also worked at the Ezy Cash store, and he believed she was having an affair with one or both of the men, or possibly being sexually exploited by them.
While giving evidence, Cassie said she had never been sexually involved with either Fanning or Matthews.
Tarapata and Cassie had been in a relationship for more than seven years. They had two children together, and Cassie was pregnant with a third.
Fanning was stabbed six times around the head and chest, while Matthews was stabbed 15 times and his throat was cut.
Cassie was at the front desk of the pawn store at the time, and heard calls for help coming from the rear of the building. She said a second cry for help from Matthews sounded ‘‘more like a shriek’’.
She opened the back door and saw Tarapata walking towards her carrying a knife, with blood on his hands.
‘‘He was breathing really heavily, and it didn’t look like him at all,’’ Cassie said.
The jury was told Tarapata appeared ‘‘wild’’ and ‘‘possessed’’.
Tarapata later made his pregnant partner drive him from the scene, and told her he wanted to wash his hands. He also picked up his Bible – which he read for most of their journey.
When Cassie asked why he had done what he did, he replied he was angry, and had just ‘‘beat them up’’.
Crown prosecutor Richard Marchant acknowledged Tarapata was delusional and paranoid, and suffering from schizophrenia, but said the test for insanity required more than that.