What happened to Alestra?
An investigation is under way into the unexplained death in state care of a bright 4-year-old girl. Tommy Livingston looks back on the youngster’s short life.
Alestra Kepa-Hati was always bubbly, bossy and loud. So when her caregiver noticed there was silence coming from the child’s bedroom, she decided to check on her.
Erana Benedito opened the door and flicked on the light. The first thing she noticed: little Alestra’s lips were bright purple.
‘‘I yelled, ‘Call 111, she is not breathing’. She was limp. I laid her flat on the floor, and said, ‘Call the ambulance to get here now’.’’
Just hours later, Alestra lay dead in Starship children’s hospital. Doctors discovered she had suffered a brain bleed.
Since that night in October 2015, Alestra’s family has struggled to make peace with her sudden death. They’re desperate to learn more about how and why she died.
But a long-running police investigation has failed to deliver answers, leaving many worried the full circumstances of her death will remain a mystery.
Alestra’s short life was marked by constant setbacks.
She suffered her first brain bleed shortly after birth, and by the age of two had been diagnosed with epilepsy, global development delay and asthma.
Her communication skills were limited, and she would regularly bang her head against things and claw at her skin.
Alestra was raised by her mother Jahzinda Kepa-Green and her partner Peter Hati in Manurewa, South Auckland.
Kepa-Green says her daughter loved to play and laugh with her siblings.
‘‘She was out of this world,’’ KepaGreen remembers.
However, with little money and limited support, Alestra’s parents sometimes struggled to provide for the girl and her two younger siblings.
The pair’s relationship was not stable, and Kepa-Green suffered from post-natal depression.
Child, Youth and Family became involved with the family. Its social workers were concerned for the children’s safety.
The organisation provided support for Kepa-Green and Hati, but eventually decided that the children should be removed from their parents, and placed with extended wha¯ nau.
Walter and Erana Benedito were chosen by social workers to care for the three children. The couple had a long history of caring for wha¯nau, and had helped raise Jahzinda when she was a child.
The Beneditos live in Northland, 10 minutes from Kaikohe, on a farm near Te Iringa Marae.
According to a lawyer who met the family, the Beneditos were very ‘‘loving, focused and committed caregivers’’ for the Kepa-Hati kids. For the year they lived with the Beneditos, their health and social skills seemed to improve.
The same lawyer who visited the family noted the children called the Beneditos ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’.
Erana Benedito says the children quickly bonded with her and Walter.
‘‘When we got these three young babes, I was tickled pink . . . I had these beautiful three children.
‘‘They were just gorgeous. We would show them off . . . They were beautiful.’’
However, Alestra’s life came to a sudden halt in October 2015. On the afternoon of her death, Benedito says the 4-year-old suffered a minor seizure, which caused her to fall and hit her head.
Alestra seemed to recover quickly, and later in the evening was playing happily with her siblings. Some time after the children were put to bed, Benedito noticed that there was no noise coming from their bedroom.
‘‘It was quiet. I said, ‘This is strange’.’’
When she discovered Alestra’s limp body, she asked Walter to call an ambulance immediately.
After that call, emergency services took half an hour to get to their house, Benedito says.
A family member who lived at a neighbouring property stopped the ambulances from accessing the driveway when they arrived, confused as to where they were going.
When paramedics managed to reach the property, they entered the house and revived Alestra on the lounge floor. Her heartbeat was weak.
She was taken to Whangarei Hospital, and later airlifted to Starship.
‘‘When the paramedics were working, I was going, ‘Why, why, why, why?’,’’ Benedito says.
‘‘I said, ‘Please, Lord, please Lord, help her, help her’. I kept praying.
‘‘I turned around and said, ‘If you can’t make it [through this] then go, then go’. I said, ‘If you are in so much pain, then go, Alestra’. I just broke down and I cried because I couldn’t save her.’’
Alestra’s parents were contacted, and told to come to the Starship immediately. Doctors explained that their 4-year-old was brain-dead.
‘‘The doctors came in and told us there was no possibility Alestra would wake up,’’ Jahzinda Kepa-Green says.
Following Alestra’s death, a police investigation was launched. Kepa-Green says she wonders if she will ever know what led to Alestra’s death.
‘‘I just want some answers for my daughter, and for us to have some peace.’’
Erana and Walter Benedito say they have been interviewed by police four times, and are confident Alestra died as a result of a major medical event.
‘‘We are trying to move forward and not dwell on the past, because if we [keep] carrying on that way, it is going to consume us,’’ Erana Benedito says.
‘‘I know Jahzinda has questions, and so do I. I have always had questions, but we have never got any answers.
‘‘This happened to us under our own roof. Why us?’’
After Alestra died, the Beneditos lost custody of her siblings. They believe the children were removed because Child, Youth and Family was following its processes, not because their home was an unsafe environment.
The man who stopped the ambulance on the night of Alestra’s death has since apologised, Erana Benedito says. Apparently he believed the ambulance was trying to access the wrong property.
It is not known whether Alestra would have had a better chance of survival if the emergency services arrived earlier.
Police have held an active file on Alestra’s death for more than two years. The case was at one stage being treated as a homicide, but police say it is now considered an unexplained death.
‘‘We acknowledge that this investigation is taking a significant amount of time, and we understand that this does not make it easy for a family grieving the loss of a child,’’ Acting Detective Senior Sergeant John Clayton told the Sunday Star-Times.
‘‘However, this investigation is very complex and while we are not in a position to discuss specific details, we can assure our community that we are carrying out a thorough and professional investigation, as we investigate Alestra’s tragic death.’’
In a statement, Oranga Tamariki – the ministry that replaced Child, Youth and Family – says it won’t comment while the police investigation is under way.
‘‘It is a tragedy when a child dies unexpectedly. Our thoughts and support go to her family and wider whanau,’’ the organisation says.
If police are unable to determine the cause of Alestra’s death, that call will be made by the coroner.