A Goan couple who had migrated to New Zealand have been stabbed and killed on Friday at their house in Epsom, Central Auckland while their son who was also stabbed is fighting for his life in hospital.
Police announced that the killing was a family harm-related incident with no wider risk to the public. A man linked to the double killing, who was also found from the couple’s home with critical injuries remained in a critical but stable condition last night. The man is under police guard and deemed to be in police custody, Detective Inspector Scott Beard said.
A fourth person who received superficial injuries in the incident has been discharged from the hospital and was also interviewed by detectives on Friday. This person has been identified as a passer-by who tried to intervene.
While the post mortems are due to be performed, police said that they haven’t charged anyone yet as the investigations are still in their early stages. Police won’t release the victims’ names while the next-of-kin is being informed. Telling them and completing formal identifications will take more days yet.
Police were called on reports of a stabbing at about 11.30 am on Friday where two people were found with critical injuries. Although immediate first aid was given the couple succumb to their injuries. The couple’s engineering graduate son was also found stabbed and was taken to hospital with critical injuries, and was taken to surgery.
According to Gupta who lives next door, she was friends with the dead woman, who was a good lady and helpful. The dead woman worked at the University of Auckland while her husband worked at Fisher & Paykel Healthcare. The couple immigrated to New Zealand from Goa and moved into the block of flats in 2007 because it was in the zone for Auckland Grammar where their son attended. Their son had graduated from Massey University engineering school and started his career.
“It’s very, very devastating. And they left India for a better lifestyle so it’s really sad to see this happen to them” said Auckland Indian Association President Narendra Bhana referring to the tragedy.
According to him, there’s a growing number of people in the community and vicinity getting ready to give their support in this case. “There have been a few phone calls been going around, I have had a few phone calls already, and at this stage our focus is how, how we can help the family,” Bhana says.
“At this point in time just would like to extend our message to the community that our thoughts are with you in this difficult time,” Bhana added.
