‘I committed murder today’

Matthew Ahlquist was discharged from a mental health facility and met Colin Moyle. Weeks later, Moyle was dead. His brother has campaigned for law changes to bring relief to families who’ve lost someone to an insane killer. Blair Ensor reports for The Hom

Matthew Ahlquist climbed through a broken window in the front door, carrying a stolen tin of petrol and a lighter. Once inside the home in the modest Auckland suburb of Sandringham, Ahlquist grabbed a kettle from the kitchen, filled it with water and took it to the only bedroom. He set it up so it didn’t stop boiling.

The then-32-year-old retrieved a spade from a shed outside. He crouched in the bedroom and waited for his former flatmate, Taranaki-born Colin Edward Moyle, to return to the Housing New Zealand home at 52 Kiwitea St.

Ahlquist, who had paranoid schizophrenia, had been kicked out of the property two days earlier.

He’d lived there for a few weeks after being discharged early from a mental health facility where he’d been found smoking and drinking alcohol in his room.

Moyle, 55, who was battling alcoholism, apparently met Ahlquist, who’d been living rough and in boarding houses, while sitting on a park bench in Sandringham, Auckland. They struck up a friendship and soon became flatmates.

However, the relationship soured and the police were called. Ahlquist was trespassed from the property.

About 4.30pm on Friday, May 11, 2007, a bloodcurdling scream rang out around the neighbourhood.

Moyle had returned home from the nearby shops, where it’s thought he posted a Mother’s Day card. As he unlocked the front door, Ahlquist threw boiling water over his face.

A 14-year-old girl hanging out washing next door heard Moyle’s screams as he ran from the house, then several thuds. Over the fence she saw a bald man with a large spider tattoo hitting Moyle with what looked like a piece of firewood as he lay on the ground. Ahlquist had followed Moyle and whacked him in the head with the spade, snapping the handle with the first blow.

The girl retreated inside and watched from a window as Ahlquist doused Moyle with petrol, then set him alight with a Bic lighter.

Ahlquist sat on the front steps of the house and watched as Moyle’s body burned. He was still sitting there when police arrived.

Ahlquist told a detective he’d decided to kill Moyle after a drunken conversation during which Moyle admitted a serious crime. There’s no evidence Moyle ever committed the crime.

Ahlquist said his actions were premeditated and he’d tried to kill Moyle as quickly as possible.

‘‘I hit him until he was dead,’’ Ahlquist told the detective. ‘‘I committed murder today and I feel like absolute s... I was really upset that motherf ..... got away with [it] ...’’

Ahlquist was charged with Moyle’s murder. Three days later, detective inspector Bernie Hollewand wrote in an email that the case would not be difficult to prove on the facts, but mental health was an issue, suggesting Ahlquist could be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Like Gavin Dash, Janet Pike, Malcolm Beggs, Paddy Burton and Faletoi Kei, Moyle had been killed by a person with schizophrenia who was being treated in the community, Hollewand wrote.

Since 2004, 33 people – five women and 28 men – have been found not guilty of murder or manslaughter by reason of insanity, according to data compiled by The Homicide Report, a Stuff investigation into why New Zealanders kill.

Many of them were known to mental health services.

For a person to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, the court needs to be satisfied they were suffering from a ‘‘disease of the mind’’ at the time of the offence and were unable to distinguish between right and wrong. They’re committed as special patients under the health system, rather than sent to jail.

Victims say the verdict, particularly the use of the words ‘‘not guilty’’, is offensive because they’re left with a feeling of injustice.

They’re also unhappy about the lack of information they receive once a person is committed to the health system.

A new bill recently introduced to Parliament aims to address both those issues.

Ahlquist was a good kid who was involved in Scouts and loved skating and surfing, his family says. It wasn’t until he attended secondary school that his life began to fall apart.

According to family, Ahlquist, who had learning and behavioural issues, struggled to make friends, skipped class, fought and began mixing with the wrong crowd – drinking alcohol and taking drugs. By his mid teens, he was a heavy cannabis user and in trouble with police for relatively minor crimes, like breaking into a church.

Ahlquist’s history with the mental health system began in 1996, aged 19, after he fell from a skateboard and fractured his skull.

The following year, in the depths of heavy drug use, he presented to psychiatric services and explained that he was hearing voices. He also selfharmed.

It wasn’t until 2002, when Ahlquist was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, that he was first admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

When he was eventually discharged, he did not take his prescribed medication and mental health staff found him difficult to keep tabs on.

In 2005, a day after he contacted the Auckland District Health Board’s mental health crisis team and said he wasn’t coping, Ahlquist attempted to strangle his father. The attack was stopped by a boarder living at his parents’ home. Ahlquist reported himself to police.

He was convicted of common assault, but was released immediately because he’d served his sentence while on remand.

In 2007, Ahlquist was voluntarily admitted to Auckland District Health Board’s Te Whetu Tawera mental health unit after two attempts at self-harm. He was discharged early after he was found drinking and smoking in his room. The clinical notes showed no evidence of mental illness during his short stay in the unit and he was not considered high risk when he was discharged.

After leaving the unit, Ahlquist again stopped taking his medication.

On numerous occasions he contacted his family, who raised concerns. At the time he killed Moyle, Ahlquist was avoiding help for his mental health issues.

His family, who’d taken a protection order against him, later told police they had feared he would kill someone.

In her formal statement, Ahlquist’s mother said: ‘‘We have likened ourselves to the Burton family in

‘‘I was gutted. To us that wasn’t justice for Colin. It was good for Mr Ahlquist because he’d get the help he needed ... which he should have got earlier, but for Colin and Colin’s family nothing changed. Colin was dead and nobody was accountable for it ... and we still feel that way.’’ Graeme Moyle

Queenstown in which the son killed the mother. We have tried to get help for Matthew and have known ourselves, especially since he tried to strangle his father in 2005, that he is not fit to be in the community and is unsafe.’’

Mark Burton, who had paranoid schizophrenia, stabbed his mother, Patricia, more than 50 times in 2001. He was later found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

A damning Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) inquiry found that assessments of Ahlquist during his stay at Te Whetu Tawera were inadequate, discharge planning was lacking, and communication between teams involved in his care was ineffective.

‘‘The failings were, in part, the result of clinical decision-making, but also the result of systemic issues, the lack of clinical governance and quality structures,’’ the HDC’s findings say.

The clinical director’s assessment and risk evaluation of Ahlquist were ‘‘superficial and incomplete’’ and failed to identify his ‘‘mental health was unravelling’’.

At a High Court hearing on December 4, 2008, 18 months after Moyle’s death, Ahlquist was found not guilty by reason of insanity. ‘‘It is clear Mr Ahlquist was suffering from a disease of the mind, namely paranoid schizophrenia as at 11 May, 2007,’’ Justice Geoffrey Venning said.

Under the Crimes Act, a person is deemed insane if they’re ‘‘labouring under a disease of the mind to such an extent as as to render that person either incapable of understanding the nature and quality of the act involved’’.

The judge said the only explanation for Ahlquist’s actions was that he believed he was justified in killing Moyle ‘‘because of delusional beliefs, his auditory hallucinations and the fact he was not in touch with reality.

‘‘His state is likely to have been such that at the time he would have been incapable of knowing that what he was doing was morally wrong.’’