{"id":428686,"date":"2026-05-15T08:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428686\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T08:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:50:10","slug":"anaru-morunga-sentenced-to-life-with-17-years-non-parole-for-pouto-murder-of-jasmaine-reihana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428686\/","title":{"rendered":"Anaru Morunga sentenced to life with 17 years\u2019 non-parole for Pout\u014d murder of Jasmaine Reihana"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cJasmaine\u2019s absence is felt every day, in milestones she will never witness, in guidance she can no longer give, and in the love her children will always miss,\u201d her sister said at Morunga\u2019s sentencing in the High Court at Whang\u0101rei this morning.<\/p>\n

At the murder trial<\/a> in March, the jury heard the pair had been away at a four-day tangi, then returned to the home he shared in Pout\u014d with his mother and her partner.<\/p>\n

At the tangi, Morunga gave a speech while high on methamphetamine, which Justice David Johnstone described at sentencing as \u201can embarrassment\u201d.<\/p>\n

The judge believed Morunga was then brooding over his shortcomings and exposing his vulnerabilities in front of wh\u0101nau.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, combined with your significant methamphetamine use, inspired a false sense of persecution. In other words, a false feeling on your part that there might be people in your vicinity who were out to get you. Your thinking was disordered,\u201d Justice Johnstone said.<\/p>\n

The jury heard Morunga believed people were following him<\/a>, that Reihana planned to kill him, and a trigger man was hiding in a hidden floor of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

Reihana drove them to the house in Pout\u014d that he shared with his mother and stepfather, who instantly noticed Morunga\u2019s agitated behaviour.<\/p>\n

When his stepfather left briefly to call the police, Morunga slit Reihana\u2019s throat, threw her body into her car and drove it to the far end of the farm he worked on and set it alight.<\/p>\n

When he was arrested and taken in for questioning, he admitted he had killed Reihana.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just walked over to her, grabbed her, pulled the knife out and cut her throat,\u201d he said in his police interview recorded in September 2024.<\/p>\n

Despite the admission, he pleaded not guilty and took the case to trial, where he got in the dock and gave a re-enactment to the jury <\/a>of how he killed Reihana.<\/p>\n

In that evidence, he changed his story and said Reihana had a gun and he had to kill her to protect his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pulled, she pulled, I won,\u201d he testified.<\/p>\n

He asked from the dock, \u201cHow come no one believes my story?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JasmaineJasmaine Reihana was a mother of seven children, two of whom she shared with Morunga.<\/p>\n

Reihana\u2019s family members delivered victim impact statements about the devastating loss of their girl, who was known as \u201cJaz\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing can fully express the depth of loss our family has suffered. I do not believe that any of us will ever have complete closure around the circumstances of Jasmaine\u2019s death,\u201d her sister said.<\/p>\n

The statement said they were hopeful the two families could move forward for the sake of the children.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo family emerges from this without loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a burden no child should ever have to carry, and it will shape their lives forever. Jasmaine\u2019s absence is felt every day, in milestones she will never witness, in guidance she can no longer give, and in the love her children will always miss.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family said they would continue to honour Reihana\u2019s memory and find a path that allows healing, dignity, and peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumbness of the soul\u201d<\/p>\n

Crown lawyer Bernadette O\u2019Connor submitted Morunga\u2019s actions were callous, driven by his own jealousy and paranoia.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis attitude toward the offending is a graphic demonstration of a want of feeling, or insensibility, amounting to a numbness of the soul,\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor also pointed out Morunga had told pre-sentence report <\/a>writers he was the victim, which defence lawyer Arthur Fairley elaborated on, saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously this man is a victim, there\u2019s no question of that. He\u2019s seen things no child should see, and he\u2019s seen things that he\u2019s seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he was struggling to say really, sir, was, well, he\u2019s had losses as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI own you\u201d<\/p>\n

In summing up, Justice Johnstone referred to Morunga\u2019s criminal history of violence, including an earlier incident where he threatened to kill Reihana.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring that two-day episode, you said to Ms Reihana, \u2018I own you\u2019, and you threatened her with further violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Morunga, it appears you had thought about killing Ms Reihana with a knife on occasion for around eight years before you did kill her with a knife.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnaruAnaru Morunga told pre-sentence report writers he was a victim too.<\/p>\n

Justice Johnstone said Morunga was callous and brutal, and Reihana was particularly vulnerable, having had a long history with him and remaining in contact for the relationships of their children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout any form of provocation from Ms Reihana, you decided to, and you did, kill her using the knife.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou suggested this was because she had aligned herself with those imagined people who were out to get you and that their plan was at some unknown time in the future to kill you, your mother and other relatives of yours.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou told the police that Ms Reihana did not scream. The following are your words: \u2018She accepted her fate, she understood it was either me or her. I told her they should have shot me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Johnstone said Morunga\u2019s disordered thinking and paranoid delusions were associated with excessive methamphetamine consumption.<\/p>\n

The judge said Morunga continued to adopt an unfeeling approach to Reihana\u2019s life and death.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou described killing her using disgraceful language. You said, these are your words, you \u2018just f***** stabbed her in the neck and just cut her right open like a sheep\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Johnstone did not accept Morunga was a victim because of his upbringing and awarded him no discount in sentencing. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re in your mid-30s and, with your track record of violence, you have plainly failed to respond to life lessons about how you should behave, and you must be held accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have no remorse, no insight into the appalling nature of your conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morunga was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.<\/p>\n

Shannon Pitman is a Whang\u0101rei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ng\u0101puhi\/ Ng\u0101ti P\u016bkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cJasmaine\u2019s absence is felt every day, in milestones she will never witness, in guidance she can no longer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15140,45451,2082,42,159963,424,52475,4275,43,165156,1118,123353,159964,5161,61,40,38,41,39,102,1530],"class_list":["post-428686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-15140","tag-anaru","tag-for","tag-headlines","tag-jasmaine","tag-life","tag-morunga","tag-murder","tag-news","tag-nonparole","tag-of","tag-pout","tag-reihana","tag-sentenced","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-with","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428686","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=428686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}