Former patient guilty of murder
Trial of man with schizophrenia history highlights problems in mental health system, victim’s daughter says
Tcourts he daughter of a pensioner brutally killed by a mental health patient who had just been released from hospital, says the case highlights serious problems in the mental health system.
Gabriel Hikari Yad-Elohim has been on trial for the murder of Michael David Mulholland in the High Court at Auckland for the past week and a half. Yesterday he was found guilty of murder and he will be sentenced next month.
He will be remanded to the care of the Mason Clinic, Auckland’s regional forensic psychiatry services unit, where he has been since shortly after his arrest in September last year.
Mulholland’s daughter, who attended every day of trial, told the Herald she would have felt the same regardless of the verdict the jury reached. The trial had highlighted what she described as serious problems in the mental health system.
“But it’s not going to bring back my dad,” she said.
Mulholland’s body was found in the stairwell at the Western Springs flats where the 69-year-old lived on September 26.
He was beaten to death by YadElohim, a 30-year-old with a history of schizophrenia.
Crown prosecutor Kirsten Lummis had suggested the killing was a result of a “drug deal gone wrong” after YadElohim had been trying to score meth
HWatch video at nzherald.co.nz on Karangahape Rd. A third person, transgender woman Tai Hona Uru, intended to con and steal from YadElohim and visited Mulholland’s flat, the court heard. But Mulholland, who has no gang ties, had no drugs to offer when later YadElohim knocked on his apartment door.
CCTV filmed the entire assault as Yad-Elohim pulled Mulholland from his flat and attacked him for five or six minutes. The footage, seen by the Herald, was suppressed from public release by Justice Gerard van Bohemen. It shows Mulholland was quickly rendered unconscious.
Yad-Elohim was arrested in central Auckland the next day.
The defence team, led by Annabel Cresswell, said her client was legally insane at the time of the attack.
Yad-Elohim changed his name from Yuuki Watanabe to his Hebrew name, which translated means “hand or messenger of God”.
Expert evidence by psychiatrist Dr James Cavney during the trial suggested Yad-Elohim was hearing voices, of Satan and God, telling him he had a “divine endorsement” to kill. He saw himself as a Japanese anime character with supernatural powers.
The Herald earlier revealed YadElohim was a patient at Auckland District Health Board’s acute mental health unit, Te Whetu Tawera. Sources said he was released from its care only days before the killing.
The court heard during the trial Yad-Elohim was discharged from Te Whetu Tawera by Dr Peter (William) McColl, the service clinical director, just three days before killing Mulholland.
“Te Whetu don’t appear to want to take any responsibility for that release,” Cresswell said during her closing address.
Under cross-examination, several critical questions were asked of McColl, who admitted a factor in releasing Yad-Elohim was that the unit had run out of beds.
However, McColl stood by his decision and said neither he nor his team had “dropped the ball”.
“Te Whetu Tawera is a pretty acute place, everyone there is pretty ill,” he said. “It was a good discharge, it was well thought through. This is what we do.”
Defence lawyer Matthew Goodwin asked him: “Where are the safeguards, doctor, where are the safeguards for the community with this patient being released?”
McColl replied: “All the pieces were in place to follow up . . . he was well, his symptoms had resolved. He no longer needed hospital-level care.”
“You say that, but three days after release he killed someone,” Goodwin retorted.
Lummis said during her closing address: “It is a very sad indictment on our community that we have just the 56 beds available for our acute mental health [patients] . . . but this is not what this trial is about, it’s about what happened in that stairwell.”
After Mulholland’s death, an external review was also conducted on the treatment given to Yad-Elohim while he was a patient at Te Whetu Tawera. But, in what shocked the lawyers involved in the case, the findings weren’t disclosed to a court or counsel for Yad-Elohim’s legal proceedings. The review showed the medical notes kept on him were “misleading”.
During the trial, the court heard Yad-Elohim, who was born in South Korea but identified as Japanese, also believed he had a conversation with the spirit of Mulholland shortly after the attack. JAPANESE BUXUS $2.50, $3.99 & $4.99 PITTOSPORUM CORNIFOLIUMS $17 TOTARA MATAPOURI BLUE $12.99 & $29 PHOTINIA RED ROBIN $3.99, $14 & $17 CAMELLIAS SILVER DOLLAR $15 & $29 GARDENIAS $2.50, $3.99 & $12.99 MURRAYA PANICULATA $9.99 OLIVE EL GRECO $9.99 TECOMA CAPENSIS $14 LAVENDERS $4.99 EUGENIAS $9, $13, $20 & $49 MICHELIA GRACIPES $9.99 TEUCRIUM $2.50, $3.99 & $4.99 MICHELIA FIGO $6.99 & $9.99 FAIRY MAGNOLIAS $12 & $17 BUXUS GREEN GEM $3.99 NZ TITOKIS $10, $35 & $59 GRISELINIAS $12, $15 & $39