The argument had escalated and involved someone else throwing a can, which struck a toddler being held by one of Rewita’s female friends.
Pati, 33, was rushed to Hawke’s Bay Hospital about 1km away by members of his family after he was stabbed, and arrived there in a state of traumatic cardiac arrest caused by the stab wound to his head.
Hospital staff worked on him for about 20 minutes but could not revive him and he was pronounced dead.
Rewita, 30, pleaded guilty to murder in the High Court at Napier last month.
The details of what happened that Sunday evening have been revealed in a summary of facts which has now been released by the court.
The summary said that Pati had attended church in the morning and returned to his home in the Hastings suburb of Camberley about midday.
He went out again to visit relatives in Flaxmere and returned again about 9pm with family and friends to celebrate an 18th birthday party.
Most of the women and children at the party were inside the house, while the men socialised outside at the front, close to the street.
Rewita annoyed at party-goers
Rewita was sitting in a car with his female associate and her child in the same street and, according to the summary of facts, became annoyed at the people attending the party.
He walked up to them with his fists clenched and asked them where they were from and what they were doing there.
Pati’s family has said previously that he had lived in the street for less than two weeks.
After confronting the party-goers, Rewita walked down the road towards the woman’s house. Several of the men from the party, not including Pati, followed him.
An argument started between the men, Rewita and the woman, who was holding her child at the time.
Keith Pati, 33, died at Hawke’s Bay Hospital, where he had been taken by family members. Photo / Supplied
The argument became heated. Insults and challenges to fight were exchanged.
Someone from the party threw a beer can towards Rewita and the woman.
They both told police later that the can hit the child.
Police arranged for the child to be medically checked and no injuries were found.
A person from the party kicked and damaged the woman’s fence. A man also damaged the wing mirror of a car that was parked at her property.
The conflict left Rewita “sort of angry but panicking”, he later told police.
Armed with knife from kitchen
He went inside the house and armed himself with a knife from the kitchen drawer.
Rewita told police he felt compelled to “push back” as he was the “protector” of the woman and the child.
He said that the can had hit the 2-year-old and he “couldn’t let that slide”.
“I can’t sit still and think about it,” Rewita said in his police interview. “I have to go out and do something. That’s all that was going through my mind.”
Jumped over fences
Rewita went back outside and jumped over several neighbours’ fences to enter Pati’s section from the back of the driveway, without being seen.
He ran towards a group of party-goers and swung the knife at the side of Pati’s head.
“The entire blade of the knife entered the victim’s left temple, just above the ear,” the summary of facts said.
Pati fell to the ground holding his hand to his face, which was bleeding profusely.
Members of his family tried to stem the bleeding with items of clothing before carrying him to a vehicle and taking him to the hospital.
Rewita fled from the area, initially on foot and then in another vehicle, discarding the knife along the way, and about half an hour later made the video call to the woman.
Rewita said later that he did not aim when he went for Pati with the knife and did not know where he had struck him.
“Yeah, I did it,” he said in his police interview.
“I apologise and I never meant for any of that to f****** break out like that.”
A ‘great father, friend, brother, cousin’
A relative has said that Pati was “a great father, friend, brother, cousin”, and a “humble, loving guy”.
“He loved his children more than anything, loved going fishing and loved putting his family first,” said the relative, who asked not to be named.
“He wasn’t involved in the fight that broke out, but he was there to stop it. But instead he got hurt and was killed.”
Rewita is due to be sentenced on July 8.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.