{"id":191214,"date":"2025-12-19T05:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T05:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/191214\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T05:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T05:11:15","slug":"murderer-to-spend-at-least-22-years-behind-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/191214\/","title":{"rendered":"Murderer to spend at least 22 years behind bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man who set fire to a Wellington hostel, murdering five people, has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 22 years.<\/p>\n

Esarona David Lologa, 50, was found guilty after a five-week trial<\/a> in September of lighting the deadly fire at Loafers Lodge in Newtown on May 16, 2023.<\/p>\n

Five people died<\/a>. They were Michael Eric Wahrlich\u200b, 67, also known as Mike the Juggler; Melvin Parun, 68; Kenneth Barnard, 67; Peter Glenn O\u2019Sullivan, 64; and Liam James Hockings, 50.<\/p>\n

Sentence revealed for man who set fire to Loafers Lodge, killing five – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The victims of the Loafers Lodge fire: Melvin Parun, Kenneth Barnard, Peter O’Sullivan, Liam Hockings and Michael Wahrlich (clockwise from top left). (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

At his trial, Lolaga unsuccessfully claimed a defence of insanity. His lawyers told the court it was voices that commanded him to light the two fires<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the Crown said he knew lighting the fire was wrong, and he did so because he did not like living at the hostel.<\/p>\n

In the end, the jury, of six women and four men, took 17 hours to decide Lolaga was guilty on five charges of murder and one of arson. <\/p>\n

\"Flames<\/p>\n

Flames engulfed Loafers Lodge in Wellington on May 16, 2023. (Source: Mark Jones)<\/p>\n

Another trial will likely begin next year, where four other people are facing charges of manslaughter<\/a> in relation to the Loafers Lodge fire.<\/p>\n

The charges came after an investigation into whether the state of the building and the management and compliance of its fire safety systems contributed to the fatal outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man who set fire to a Wellington hostel, murdering five people, has been sentenced to life imprisonment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,43,40,38,41,39,52],"class_list":["post-191214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}