WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

Jurors continued to watch a series of recorded interviews this morning in which a 14-year-old murder witness described in shockingly harrowing detail the torture that defined the final hours of 17-year-old Dimetrius “Precious” Pairama’s life.

Police found Pairama’s body inside a rusty steel drum in the overgrown backyard of a Māngere home five years ago this month.

Four people had been present when Pairama was repeatedly beaten, tied naked to a chair with soiled underwear stuffed in her mouth, burned and forced to hang herself inside the abandoned house. They included Ashley Winter, who was 27 at the time of the killing, and 24-year-old Kerry Te Amo, who were both found guilty of murder at the end of their joint jury trial in 2019.

A 16-year-old with name suppression, now 21, was also charged with murder at the same time but her trial in the High Court at Auckland didn’t begin until this week. Her lawyer acknowledged this week that his client was present for “the catalogue of horrible things happened to Ms Pairama” and participated in some of the torture, but he said she did not aid or encourage the murder that was carried out solely by the two older participants.

The 14-year-old, meanwhile, was granted immunity in exchange for her cooperation with police. Now 19, the witness, who also has name suppression, returned to the High Court at Auckland today to testify via video link from a separate room where she wouldn’t be able to see the final defendant.

But first, jurors needed to finish watching the three interviews she gave with police in July and August 2018 - the first with a homicide detective and the final two with a constable specialising in child interviews.

“I hope you have a good life.”

Those were Pairama’s last words to the current defendant, the child witness told police in her second interview.

A woman with name suppression is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, accused of having helped kidnap and murder 17-year-old Dimetrius Pairama in July 2018. Photo / Michael Craig

While the witness wasn’t in the room when the hanging took place - having been told to keep a lookout for police from another room, where she fell asleep - she was with Pairama just before the killing and saw her body hanging from the noose afterwards, she said. All three of the defendants told her later what had happened, she told police.

When asked about the motive for the attacks, the 14-year-old said the explanation Winter gave her was confusing and involved an incident which Winter said she herself had been the victim of an attack by Black Power gang members. There was also anger over a Facebook post involving the current defendant, she said.

“And when these gang members described the girl who told them they described Dimetrius,” the 14-year-old said she was told by Winter. “But I don’t know how she knows it was Dimetrius when she only met Dimetrius the same night I met her.”

Pairama denied all of Winter’s allegations and said they could look at her Facebook messages to prove it, but the group didn’t, the witness said.

“Okay, so how come everybody is doing what Ashley is saying?” the interviewer asked.

The witness replied: “Cos she was in the Mongrel Mob and we didn’t wanna, you know ... mess with her and stuff.”

The three interviews were remarkably consistent, a detective testified earlier in the trial. But with each talk, the witness revealed new details. Some of the new details more directly implicated the current defendant in the horrific events of that day.

She described seeing the current defendant shaving Pairama’s hair as the others laughed. After Winter had the idea to burn Pairama, the current defendant went around the house and retrieved a lighter and an aerosol can to create a makeshift blowtorch, the girl described.

“She screamed but no one could hear her because the underwear was still in her mouth,” the witness said.

At that point, she said, only Winter was laughing.

“How did that make you feel?” the interviewer asked.

“Sad,” she replied. “Cos if that was me, yeah, I’d be sad.”

Winter later called a meeting in front of Pairama, the girl described in all three interviews.

Toko (Ashley) Shane Rei Winter was found guilty in September 2019 of murdering 17-year-old Dimetrius Pairama. Photo / Sam Hurley

“We sat down and she said [to Pairama], ‘How do you want to die?’” the girl recalled in the second interview. “[Pairama] didn’t talk or anything. She said she didn’t know so after that Ashley said if she doesn’t decide by 3 o’clock she’ll just stab her.”

The others then left the bedroom to look for a shovel and the 14-year-old was left alone with Pairama, she said, explaining that she offered to let Pairama get dressed and run away. The victim declined, she said.

“She’s too scared and then she told me she’ll just die,” the girl recalled. “She wanted to die so then, um, we were just talking and I apologised for touching her and stuff and she said it was alright and she said she wanted to hang herself.

“So she told me to tell Ashley, so I told Ashley ... Ashley told Kerry to get the rope ready. There was no ropes so they got used sheets, ripped them up and stuff. Yeah. That’s the last time I saw what happened [until after Pairama’s death].”

But in the third interview, she was asked to share more detail about what the current defendant was doing after Winter told the victim to choose how she wanted to die.

“[The current defendant] was just saying, ‘Should we do this?’ and Ashley was like, ‘Yeah, of course, she deserves it,’” the child said, explaining that the current defendant was said about it because she had been close friends with the victim since childhood. “Ashley just said she didn’t care.”

As the second interview ended, the 14-year old admitted: “I don’t think I’ll have a good sleep tonight.

“I keep thinking about it. I try not to, but yeah.”

The trial continues this afternoon before Justice Kiri Tahana and the jury.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.