Rewita and Pati did not know each other before the night of the stabbing at a suburban property in the Hastings suburb of Camberley on February 16, 2025.
Rewita attacked Pati, a father of four, after a dispute over a party being held at Pati’s house.
Pati himself was not involved in the earlier dispute.
“The loss of my husband is not just emotional – it affects every part of our lives,“ Marieta Pati told the High Court at Napier today, in a victim impact statement read by Crown prosecutor Fiona Cleary.
“I have lost my partner, my support, and the person I shared my future with. Our children have lost their father,” the statement said.
“This harm is not temporary. It is lifelong.
“We will continue to feel this loss every day in the moments he should be here but is not, in the milestones he will never see, and in the life we were meant to have together.”
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 May, shortly before he was due to stand trial.
He appeared for sentence today and was given a life prison sentence by Justice Paul Radich, with a minimum period of 10 years without parole.
Marieta Pati said in her statement that she was inside the house at the time of the attack and went outside when she heard a noise.
“I found my husband lying on the ground. That moment is something I will never forget.
“It was a moment of pure shock and fear – the moment my life, as I knew it, ended.”
Marieta said she now lived with ongoing anxiety, trauma, flashbacks and “deep emotional pain”. The family had been forced to move house and had lost their main provider.
“The loss to our children is profound. They miss their father every single day. They ask questions that no child should have to ask.
“They have been deprived of a father’s love, guidance, and protection at a critical time in their lives. This is a loss they will carry with them forever.”
Defence counsel Matthew Phelps said Rewita did not intend to kill Pati but acknowledged that his use of a knife in a way that might cause death was “reckless”.
He said Rewita had shown considerable remorse and pleaded guilty, meaning members of Pati’s family did not have to go through the ordeal of a trial.
Dispute with party-goers
A Crown summary of facts said Pati had attended church in the morning and returned to his home about midday.
He went out again to visit relatives in Flaxmere and returned about 9pm with family and friends to celebrate at 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 was sitting in a car with his female associate and her child on the same street and, according to the summary of facts, became annoyed at the people attending the party.
Keith Pati, 33, died at Hawke’s Bay Hospital in February after being rushed there with a stab wound to his head.
He walked up to them with his fists clenched and asked them where they were from and what they were doing there.
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.
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 beer 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 himself with a knife
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 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.”
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***ing break out like that.”
The court was told Rewita has more than 40 previous convictions and 25 custodial sentences on his criminal record, mostly for drugs, dishonesty and driving offences.
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.