Cold-case bust rocks beach community
Paul Maroroa lived the quiet life – until a DNA match over a shotgun killing, writes Torika Tokalau.
A duffel bag of belongings, a bicycle and a dog was all Paul Beveridge Maroroa had with him when he moved into Julie Savage’s Piha, Auckland, home.
It was October 24, 2017, when Savage took Maroroa in. He would be there for only five months before he was sensationally arrested and extradited over a cold-case death in Australia.
Savage had not hesitated to offer him the house bus outside her home after hearing he had gotten into some sort of trouble at the local caravan park.
‘‘I knew he was struggling, that he was in a bad place, and that he was pretty depressed,’’ Savage says. ‘‘I had known Paul for six years (so) I didn’t ask any questions.’’
Maroroa, 45, was on Friday acquitted of the murder of Robert Sabeckis, who was found gunned down in Adelaide in January 13, 2000. He was instead found guilty by an Adelaide Supreme Court jury of manslaughter, after he claimed self-defence. He will be sentenced in February.
Savage’s quiet flatmate was arrested in March 2018 in connection with the 18-year-old cold case after Australian authorities matched his DNA, following a law change that allowed them access to New Zealand’s DNA database.
Maroroa, wielding a stolen sawn-off shotgun, shot Sabeckis dead in a car park near Maslin Beach, south of Adelaide. According to evidence heard at trial, Maroroa drove away in the victim’s car before crashing it into a tree, activating the airbag, and transferring DNA in the process.
Maroroa didn’t deny shooting Sabeckis, but claimed at the trial that he pulled the trigger during a life-and-death struggle over the shotgun, amid fears he would be killed himself.
He claimed he was ordered to deliver a shotgun to the deceased to clear a drug debt.
That was when everything went wrong. He claims Sabeckis pointed the gun at him, ordering him to get into his car and pull his pants down.
After the killing, Maroroa spent almost two decades drifting from place to place.
He carried with him very little, usually a duffel bag stuffed with the little personal belongings he owned and his dog, and never stayed at one place too long, according to those who knew him. Maroroa was always on the move.
He meditated a lot, believed in natural healing and wrote in his journals of soul-searching and the meaning of life – entries Savage later found while packing his belongings after his arrest. Maroroa was accepted into the small beach community, and worked at several places including the local cafe and library.
He’d often volunteer to mind the sausage sizzle during community events and could be found having a drink in the evenings at the local RSA. When a tenant moved out of one of her bedrooms, Maroroa told Savage that he wanted to move in from the house bus.
‘‘Paul was a nice man, he was very quiet,’’
Savage says. ‘‘He never gave me any trouble and I never once felt threatened living under the same roof as him.’’
The day he was arrested Savage remembered the police helicopter circling her house for about 20 minutes.
She was in her bedroom and didn’t think too much of it until she looked out her window and saw several police cars outside her home. Some of the officers had guns.
‘‘I went outside and spoke to them, Paul was already with them. He looked calm and he didn’t have any handcuffs on. He went so willingly.’’
Police had matched his DNA from a road-rage incident a few months earlier in Auckland to that from the airbag of Sabeckis’ car.
High-profile cold cases in New Zealand recently include the arrests of two people who have been charged with the murder of Angela Blackmoore, 24 years after her death in Christchurch.
Last year arrests were made in the 1987 murder of Red Fox Tavern publican Chris Bush in north Waikato.
In both cases trials are some time away.
Speaking generally, psychologist Sara Chatwin says someone harbouring a secret can experience a lot of stress and depression.
‘‘Some people can compartmentalise these secrets, but many struggle to put things out of their mind and thus are often re-living aspects of the secret every day.’’