Son cleaned murder scene
TOM GUERIN’S family spent Christmas Day scrubbing away bloodstains and the ‘‘gutwrenching stench of decay’’ after his mother was murdered in an axe attack.
The scene of the horrific killing in Upper Hutt was meant to have been thoroughly scrubbed by crime scene cleaners, but their failures added extra torment to the family’s burden.
The cleaners also left blood spatters on a garage wall, a dog’s blood and broken teeth in the house, and failed to clean bootprints off his mother’s bed.
His mother’s body lay outdoors for two days while forensic experts examined the scene.
‘‘Because of it being the middle of summer, how hot it was, it was quite disturbing sitting out the back having a ciggie and seeing the flies walking around where my mum had been,’’ Guerin said.
He and a relative went through five litres of bleach and eight kilograms of garden lime trying to clean the pathway on Christmas Day.
The cleaning company has offered to apologise after the Guerin family complained to police about the grisly reminders of the attack by Retimana Te Korou Nicholls.
The man who was
once Tom Guerin’s best mate killed Sandra Guerin as her son fled for help from their home in Timberlea, Upper Hutt, on December 11 last year.
Tom Guerin needed hospital treatment for tomahawk wounds suffered in the same attack.
When he returned home two weeks later, he found bloodstains on the concrete and the smell of decomposition on the grass by the garage, where he had found his mother’s near-decapitated body.
Police had sent in the forensic cleaners – specialists who are paid for from a victims’ grant funded by convicts’ fines so mourners do not have to clean up themselves – on Christmas Eve.
‘‘That’s possibly
why
the cleaners did a half-arsed job,’’ Guerin said. ‘‘They were worrying about their Christmas and they weren’t worrying about the work they were paid to do.’’
Capital Chem Dry returned to finish the job on New Year’s Eve.
Owner Barry Timms said he would apologise to the Guerin family if they wanted it.
‘‘If we get things wrong, we put it right,’’ he said. ‘‘We had a timeframe pressure at Christmas trying to get it looking the best we possibly could.
‘‘I can quite understand there were things that we might have missed that we didn’t know about – that there was residue from the trauma.’’
He said he understood that the family were angry.
‘‘Every little thing left – that is going to bring back people’s terrible memories. It was not very nice.’’
Guerin was also mourning his pitbull, Ares, who was injured when animal control officers tried to remove him from the house.
The dog was acting aggressively and running around, police said.
The dog lost most of his teeth and his jaw was disfigured. He was in such pain by the time Guerin got him back from the pound that he had him put down.
Now Guerin and his mother’s dog, Jewel, live alone.
Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Thornton, who oversaw the murder investigation, said it was regrettable that the crime scene was released to the family in a state they found upsetting. Police usually found the cleaners reliable.
‘‘We use these people because they are the experts in crimescene cleaning and we certainly aimed to release the house in as best a state as possible.’’
Guerin said he would consider the apology offer.
He had spoken out because he wanted crime scene cleaners to raise their standards so other victims’ families would not suffer as he did.
Crime scene cleaners Insight, C1