Mad axe killer believed he was cursed

By CLIO FRANCIS - Stuff
Last updated 05:00 23/04/2010

A man who murdered his beloved stepfather in a frenzied axe attack believes he did so under the grip of a makutu, or curse.

Preston Cole Rameka, 28, was found not guilty of the murder of Terrence Finch, 55, from the Chatham Islands, by way of insanity in the High Court at Auckland yesterday. He will be detained at the Mason Clinic indefinitely.

The court heard Rameka had become obsessed with Maori culture in the months before the killing. He believed he was a healer, clairvoyant and was conversing with God and spirits. He also believed he had supernatural powers.

On April 15 last year, he became overwhelmed by the voices of his ancestors urging him to attack his stepfather, the court heard. Standing over Mr Finch's bed, with his nine-year-old stepbrother in the house, he slashed twice with the axe.

His mother, and Mr Finch's wife, Tina Rameka, said she arrived home minutes later and said his "eyes were bulging and he looked as if in a trance".

Rameka told Dr Tapsell he wished he could take back his actions: "I loved Terry, he was like the father I never had, I miss him."

Mrs Rameka, told Stuff.co.nz she wanted to have her son committed to a mental institution several weeks before the killing but "didn't know how to approach him".

"He was scary that day, he was yelling and screaming."

But she said her son was improving. "I love Preston very much. He is doing so much better now.

"I had to leave the court a couple of times because I didn't want to hear some things."

Yesterday, at a hearing before Justice Graham Lang, two psychiatrists testified they believed Rameka was suffering from schizophrenia and was "acutely psychotic" at the time of the murder.

Justice Lang said it was clear Rameka met the statutory requirements to be declared insane.

"It was highly probable that he did not know [what he did] was morally wrong. He also clings to the notion that his actions, in part at least, be attributed to some form of curse."

Dr Tapsell said Rameka did not have a previous psychiatric or criminal history. He was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder at six, left school aged 12 and started smoking cannabis at 13. Rameka became increasingly immersed in Maori culture about the time of the death of the Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, in 2006. Several weeks before the killing he was hearing the voices of his ancestors.

From: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3613888/Mad-axe-killer-obsessed-with-Maori-Queen