Brother starved to death
In a coma and weighing 45kg, Bruce Rangitutia was patched up and sent back to his carers. Seven months later, he was dead. Benn Bathgate reports.
Starving, unable to walk and so thirsty he had resorted to drinking his own urine, Bruce Rangitutia cried out to the couple charged with his care.
‘‘Me hungry, me hungry.’’
When his wha¯ ngai brother Jovander Terry and his partner Annie Mathews eventually roused themselves from the bed of their Tokoroa home on December 8, 2015 to check on the 55-year-old, who suffered from cerebral palsy and was intellectually handicapped, he was dead.
His death and the catalogue of suffering he endured in his last years all occurred under the noses of Waikato DHB, social workers and police.
It’s a story that spans almost four years and involves a ‘‘pang of conscience’’ confession, an exhumation, two autopsies and the discovery of a litany of injuries.
It can only now be reported after both Terry and Mathews entered guilty pleas at the Rotorua District Court this week to three charges of ill treatment of a vulnerable adult.
It also sheds a light on numerous missed chances from Waikato DHB, social workers and police to save a man’s life, and begins the end of a protracted legal process that has lasted almost two years, starting with charges being filed in June
2017.
Terry entered a guilty plea to one charge, that of ill treatment of a vulnerable adult, the particulars being failure to feed and seek medical care.
Mathews’ charges are also under the umbrella of ill treatment of a vulnerable adult, namely failing to take steps to protect Rangitutia from Terry and failing to seek medical care.
The charges themselves barely hint at the horror outlined in a 15-page police summary of facts.
It spells out how Rangitutia moved
into his brother’s Kelso St home on February 6, 2014 after the death of his mother.
What follows outlines how a man in good physical health and with a good appetite – once deemed overweight – ended up in a coma while under the care of Terry and Mathews, weighing just 45.7kg.
One staff member at Tokoroa Hospital, where he was admitted on April 22, 2015 described Rangitutia ‘‘as looking as though he had come from a concentration camp’’.
But that didn’t spell the end of Rangitutia’s time under the care of Terry and Mathews.
After a total of nine weeks at Waikato Hospital, both in their intensive care unit and acute ward, he was transferred to a rehabilitation ward.
The summary records a number of meetings between social workers and Waikato DHB staff with both Terry and Mathews, who had been caring for him for 14 months by that point.
On his discharge on June 29, 2015 it was agreed by Terry that Rangitutia should spend the next three months in the Laura Fergusson Rehabilitation facility in Whanganui.
That plan changed when Terry realised the payments he was receiving for Rangitutia’s care, $265.64 a week, would be stopped. Rangitutia’s return to Kelso St alarmed hospital staff enough for them to contact his GP, who visited and agreed a plan with Terry for him to weigh Rangitutia each week and advise the doctor, something Terry failed to do. The next few months saw social work calls ignored, visits greeted with abuse and hostility – even when accompanied by police.
One police officer described seeing Rangitutia as ‘‘very thin bordering on gaunt’’, a view not shared by the social worker who described him as ‘‘appearing to be good’’. Terry also informed them he had swapped Rangitutia’s medication for traditional Ma¯ ori medicine as he ‘‘had the right to do his own thing’’.
Concerns about Rangitutia’s health were also raised to his doctor by a lawyer appointed to represent him when Terry sought to be appointed his property manager and welfare guardian.
In response, the doctor told him he had ‘‘sent a letter to Terry’’. On December 8, 2015 the defendants called an ambulance to their address. Paramedics found Terry attempting CPR while Mathews ‘‘was crying at his feet’’.
Terry claimed he’d spoken to Rangitutia just a few hours before, though the paramedic noted the early signs of rigor mortis.
An autopsy conducted on December 9, 2015 estimated Rangitutia’s death at up to three days prior, and recorded his weight at 42kg.
This marked the start of Operation Poet, beginning with police interviewing Terry and Mathews.
Mathews claimed Rangitutia had regularly received his prescribed high calorie Fortisip drink, but was getting more ‘‘delusional’’.
He was also ‘‘getting lazier’’ and regularly soiling himself.
Terry conceded the weight loss had occurred, though he had ‘‘no explanation for it’’, and after finding him unresponsive on the morning of December 8, 2015, he called an ambulance.
No charges were laid until what one source close to the case described as a ‘‘pang on conscience’’.
It was May 2017 and, via her lawyer, Mathews contacted police.
‘‘She wished to make a further statement about the deceased.’’
That was when the full horror of Rangitutia’s care under the couple became clear.
‘‘Both prior to the deceased’s admission to hospital in April 2015 and after his discharge from hospital the defendant Terry would fail to feed the deceased,’’ the summary said.
‘‘The deceased would often ask for food and the defendant Terry would refuse to give him any. She acknowledged that she could have told somebody what was happening, but didn’t.’’
Mathews claimed she tried to ‘‘sneak’’ food to Rangitutia, and that he spent the last three days before his death confined to his room.
Unable to walk due to malnourishment, he was described as ‘‘constantly moaning and calling out for food and water’’.
‘‘Mathews told police that at one stage she believed the deceased resorted to drinking his own urine because he was so thirsty.’’
She also told police what may have been his last words, spoken on the morning of his death.
‘‘Me hungry, me hungry.’’
This statement prompted an exhumation, and on July 5, 2017 a second autopsy. It found a cause of death that tallied with the first, an acute subarachnoid haemorrhage due to the probable rupture of a cerebral vein – a brain bleed.
The second autopsy also revealed Rangitutia was suffering from bedsores, pneumonia and cachexia – wasting due to malnutrition – and uncovered a host of other injuries.
Facial abrasions, lacerations to the mouth, scalp bruises, 21 rib fractures, and fractures on his pelvis and vertebrae.
The pathologist cited one cause for all the injuries – blunt force trauma.
‘‘However they were caused, they would have been obvious to both defendants, and caused considerable pain and discomfort to the deceased.’’
Terry and Mathews had maintained a not guilty plea since June 2017 with a trial date originally scheduled for the pair on April 29 this year.
But almost two years of uncertainty came to an end on Tuesday morning when Mathews – who had been on bail – joined Terry in the dock.
The couple kissed, embraced and later, when the charges were read, pleaded guilty.
They were remanded in custody to be sentenced on July 5 – exactly two years since the second autopsy was conducted on Rangitutia, Terry’s wha¯ ngai brother and a man he received just over $250 a week to care for.
Police declined to comment on why numerous injuries were missed by the first autopsy, citing the upcoming sentencing.
Waikato DHB also refused to comment, citing patient privacy.