Mount Maunganui McDonald\u2019s on November 3, 2023, and he had not been seen again<\/a>.<\/p>\nLemoto said Tukaokao was upset when said he \u201cwanted to get him home to his family\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat it was an accident, that he didn\u2019t want him to die, he didn\u2019t want it to happen, that he wanted to make it right, that it wasn\u2019t murder, it was an accident, that it shouldn\u2019t have happened that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tukaokao told police it was too hard to describe where Shrimpton had been buried, but he could \u201cshow them\u201d.<\/p>\n
As they made their way out to Poripori in heavy traffic, Lemoto thanked Tukaokao for being honest and asked what condition Shrimpton was in.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe indicated that there had been one shot. He indicated to his chest with his left hand,\u201d Lemoto said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe stated Harley had tried to grab [the shotgun] and he had only initially had the gun to intimidate. He stated he didn\u2019t even remember pulling the trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n
They arrived at the property, as rain was falling lightly, and made their way across a paddock, down a bank, over a stream, and up the other side to where the burial site was.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we got there, he became a bit emotional,\u201d Lemoto said.<\/p>\n
Tukaokao said a karakia in te reo M\u0101ori, and Lemoto had asked him what he\u2019d said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an acknowledgment of what had happened. He said he wanted to apologise to Harley and his wh\u0101nau, and he wanted to seek forgiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Tuara]()
Tuara Heke, 21, and Piripi Tukaokao, 23, are on trial in the High Court at Rotorua.<\/p>\n
Back at the Tauranga police station, Tukaokao gave a formal statement.<\/p>\n
He said Shrimpton initially owed him $2000, but it grew to $5000, and it wasn\u2019t the first time Shrimpton had owed him money.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my own that time, so I let him get away with it. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut this time it wasn\u2019t my stuff, so I needed him to know I was serious about getting the money back to me so I could pay the person that stuff actually belonged to,\u201d Tukaokao said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I needed to scare him, because otherwise he wouldn\u2019t have paid me … I needed the money and was only interested in getting back. Killing him was of no use to me because I still had a debt to pay.\u201d <\/p>\n
He would not say who he owed money to.<\/p>\n
He concluded his police interview by saying the only reason he was there was to give Shrimpton\u2019s wh\u0101nau answers, and said he wanted to be able to \u201clook my own wh\u0101nau in the face and tell them I\u2019m sorry Tukaokao \u2013 I never wanted this\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tukaokao, who is represented by Rebekah Webby and Nicholas Dutch, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated robbery, kidnapping and murder.<\/p>\n
Co-defendant Heke, who is represented by Bill and Rita Nabney, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated robbery and being an accessory after the fact to murder, denying helping Tukaokao move Shrimpton\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
However, he has admitted to cleaning the shed where the shooting took place, as well as attempting to pervert the course of justice.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The now 23-year-old told police that after burying Shrimpton\u2019s body near a creek on a Poripori Rd property…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[125812,1561,1349,634,16719,232196,1350,78,111,43,139,69,1118,1523,240715,1562,236983,240716,3457],"class_list":["post-478191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-admissions","tag-bay","tag-court","tag-death","tag-emotional","tag-harley","tag-hears","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-over","tag-piripi","tag-plenty","tag-shrimptons","tag-tukaokaos","tag-western"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478191","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=478191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}