The vicious murder of Tara Brown
NZ woman begged for help as violent and jealous ex-partner bashed the life out of her with fire hydrant lid
‘Lionel stop me ... ” Those were the last words Tara Brown spoke. Trapped in the wreckage of her Mazda hatchback the mother-of-one begged for her life.
She begged the call taker who had picked up her 000 call, she begged the people who came running out after her car ploughed down an embankment into the yard of a Gold Coast home — but most of all she begged her ex-partner Lionel Patea.
He had chased her across the Gold Coast, reaching speeds of 200km/h as he tried to stop her, block her car, catch her. He had rammed her off the road, smashed her driver’s window and tried to pull her out of the mangled car.
And now he was coming at her with a 7.8kg, solid metal weapon — the lid from an underground fire hydrant.
Thump. He brought the lid down, smashing it into her face. He kept thumping. Patea thumped Brown 16 times around the head with that metal lid.
Lisa Kennedy came running over, screamed at him “what the f**k are you doing?”.
“She’s got my kid,” Patea said, then lifted the lid and started thumping Brown again.
He hit her another 13 times. Then he stopped.
Brown was no longer begging. She was silent. ara Brown was born and raised in Auckland and moved to the Gold Coast with her family as a teen-
T. . . Please help ager.
In 2011 she started a relationship with Lionel John Patea and a year later the young couple welcomed their first child together, a little girl whose name was suppressed by the court.
Photos show a young couple in love, and enamoured with their child. Patea was a member of the Bandito’s gang, a sergeant at arms in fact,
But behind the smiles, the happy snapshots of the photogenic family, was a life of hidden abuse and control.
Brown began to succumb to Patea’s threats, orders and diminishing comments. Her self-confidence was being eroded by the man she loved.
The couple broke up and reconciled multiple times, police were called, protection orders were granted after domestic violence was reported.
It was on a trip to New Zealand in 2015 that Brown decided to leave Patea for the last time. She was done.
She never could have imagined that decision would be fatal.
The beginning of the end of Brown’s life started in the departures lounge at Auckland Airport.
She had come home for a few days with her mother to help scatter her grandfather’s ashes and was heading back to the Gold Coast. Patea had also returned to New Zealand but, tellingly, was travelling separately to Brown and her mother.
They were returning to Australia on the same day, but on different flights, and said their goodbyes at the airport.
Patea walked off towards his gate and Brown pulled out her phone and started to text a friend.
Suddenly, Patea was right behind her, reading over her shoulder, furious at what he thought he was seeing.
Apparently he thought she was being unfaithful. He grabbed at her phone. She ran off. He chased her through the airport.
Airport security guards had to intervene. They both made their flights. Lionel Patea, shown in a court sketch, “had no recollection of the incident” in which he chased Tara Brown and ultimately ended her life.
Brown went straight home to pack her things and her enraged partner arrived while she was there. They argued.
Patea told her to move out of the home they shared, told her she could not take their daughter — in fact, that she could not see the child. But he refused to let her leave the house and cut her off from the outside world.
After a few days he kicked Brown out but did not let her take their daughter — even when he had to go away to work at his mining job he left the child with his aunt and demanded periodic photographic proof that the girl was not with her mother.
Brown disclosed what was happening to her boss — she was an administrator at a law firm — and was helped into a safe house.
Over the next few days Brown worked with her boss on an application for sole custody for their daughter and started planning her new life without her abusive partner. n Monday, September 7, 2015, Brown’s custody order was served on Patea’s solicitor. Arguably it was this that tipped the 24-year-old totally over the edge. He’d been trying to find Brown since she went to the safe house.
Brown was staying with her aunt that night, and at 8.30am on September 8, she left the safety of the house to take their daughter to day care. If she’d known Patea had called the day care centre half an hour earlier to ask if the girl was coming in for the day, she likely would have thought twice.
Brown dropped her child off, got into her Mazda and pulled out of the carpark. Seconds later Patea, in his black SUV, was right behind her. She panicked and called 000. “Help me . . . he’s going to stab me . . . ” Brown pleaded with the call taker.
OShe stopped at an intersection, the red traffic light impeding her getaway and allowing Patea to scream up beside her, pull in in front of the Mazda and cut her off. He stormed up to her window, punching and pummelling the glass with both fists demanding she get out. The light changed and she sped off, Patea grabbing at her doorhandle as she fled. He kept chasing. She kept pleading for help, repeatedly screaming the name of the suburb she was in and asking for the police to come.
She never hung up the phone. Her entire murder was recorded, overheard by a call taker who was helpless to stop Patea.
When this violent and tragic tale was relayed in the Brisbane Supreme Court today, Patea did not flinch. He sat, staring blankly ahead and showing no emotion as the prosecution detailed the last terrifying and violent minutes of Brown’s life.
His lawyer would later tell the court Patea “had no recollection of the incident”.
Patea may not remember doing it — but what he did is something many people will never forget.