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Oh. I can still see it...

Beautiful girl.

She was quite a sickly baby when she was born.

She ended up being an asthmatic child,

but when she became a mum, she was a beautiful mum,

absolutely beautiful mum.

Always smiling,

she'd always wave, "Hi Auntie," you know.

Just what happened to her is so sad

you know, it still hurts today,

it'll probably hurt forever what happened to Janet.

-...and your pappa. Hello.

-You know one day maybe the girls are gonna ask us

and we haven't got an answer.

What do you say to two beautiful girls when they ask you,

"What happened to our mommy?"

They were a nice family.

We all went to the same school together,

played together, we did things together you know.

I was quite close to some of Janet's aunties

on that side.

I'm still in shock a bit, that they let this happen.

That they went that far

to try and heal her.

It was shortly after five p.m. on a Friday

when outplace communications center had a call

requesting that police attend

at an address in Wainuiomata.

My name is Tusha Penny,

I was a detective sergeant in Lower Hutt,

second in charge of the operation.

What we could never have appreciated

when we first walked through the door

was that what was about to unfold

was something incredibly unique,

something incredibly tragic,

and something very challenging.

Whenever you work on any case, any case at all,

it's a privilege, you have a really big job to do

and we worked very hard to understand

how a family could do that to one of their own.

There were conflicting stories about how Janet had died.

Although some of the family members

had said she had actually died hours earlier

and from a mental illness or sickness.

It was a matter of trying to unravel what had happened,

trying work back.

We talked to an excess of 70 people,

we let them tell their story.

One person saying it probably doesn't have a lot of weight,

but when a whole lot of people

are telling you the same story

then there's something in that.

Take a seat.

What can you tell me about making a promise?

A promise is... being truthful

to the person you made the promise to.

So do you promise me everything

we talk about in this room today will be the truth?

Yeah, if I can remember.

So what I'll get you to do

is just read card out aloud please.

I Glenys Wright do sincerely and truly declare and affirm

that I will tell the truth

during this interview here today.

I John Tahana Rawiri

sincerely and truthfully affirm

that I will tell the truth in this interview here today.

This family

cooperated fully with the police.

My name's Phil Mitchell, I was defense council,

tasked primarily with researching the case.

They genuinely believed there was something

very malignant and dangerous within her.

You can't just

act on bizarre beliefs and kill someone

and nothing's done about it.

My name's Grant Burston, it was my responsibility

to lead the team of Crown prosecutors

who conducted the case against

the people charged in relation to Janet's death.

What have you come to talk to me about today?

Things that happened last week.

What?

About Janet Moses.

Should we start there?

I'm just...

from the 21st when we were at... the Palisa Hotel.

On Saturday night there was a 21st function

for Janet's sister at the Palisa Hotel in Wainuiomata.

You have close families

but this was extraordinary.

A close-knit family might be a family

that gets together for lunch every Sunday, but these people,

they lived together, they had their own family sports team,

they socialized together.

I can remember numerous times during the trial

people saying they're best friends with their cousins.

They did everything together.

Janet had a very difficult time

in the weeks leading up to her death,

it would seem to be a complete and total change in her.

And Jan was just... sitting,

gazing at the wall.

She didn't look right.

This was quite a shock

to everybody around her,

it seemed to have come on very quickly.

My name is Dr. Rees Tapsell,

I'm a consultant forensic psychiatrist

and I'm also of Maori origin

and have through my life been involved in the... interface

between particularly psychiatry and cultural practice.

Janet had a very close and loving relationship

with her grandmother

and her grandmother passed away relatively recently

and she'd also had some fairly major stresses

in terms of a relationship.

And I think the combination of those things

are likely to have put a huge amount

of pressure and stress on her.

Who is Shane?

That's Janet's partner,

they've been together for around nine years I think.

Tell me about him, about him that night.

Hello my darlings.

Come on we'll go.

I'm just gonna hang out with the boys for a little bit.

Come be with the kids.

Bye Louise.

She learned of an infidelity with her partner

and after that she became very withdrawn.

Did you drop Janet off somewhere?

We went over to Jan's aunties

and we ended up staying the night there.

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming,

they're coming, they're coming.

Jan.

Jan?

Hey, come on, come back inside now,

come on, you're okay.

Our girl was in danger,

we decided to take her down to my brother Johnny's

and get the family together for a hui,

to discuss her, why she's not acting right.

Hey, you, come here.

They I think had regular family meetings

to discuss anything that popped up,

which is quite a lovely traditional way,

I mean maybe it's the way we all were generations ago.

And unfortunately the grandmother had died

and she had been a great matriarch of this family

for a long time and she would always take charge

in situations like this, but she wasn't there.

At those meetings is there someone

who is in charge or does the talking, how does that work?

Yeah, that's John, he's like the head of our family.

Everyone put their ideas together,

to work out what the problem was with Jan.

Normally she's happy go lucky, yeah.

We all knew something was very wrong.

Something deep.

She didn't have no tears or nothing,

she was just sitting there and as hot as she was

she still wouldn't take off her jacket.

People were just coming up to her saying,

"I'm sorry if I hurt you in any way," stuff like that,

"We're all here for you, we all love you," and everything.

And did Janet talk at the meeting?

She was just staring at the ground and stuff.

It's very difficult to be certain

about what was actually happening to Janet,

but all of the evidence that I saw

suggested that she was becoming psychotic

and that she was having extreme changes in her mood.

It's very common for people

to incorporate the things that others are saying

and the things that others are doing into your psychosis

and that reinforces for people around that person

the way in which they might have understood that behavior.

It might be depression.

You can imagine then how it's very easy

to get in a bit of a vicious cycle.

But it's important to remember

that whilst I might have a particular medical paradigm

of the way in which I view and approach mental illness,

not everybody shares that paradigm.

is my ancestral mountain.

is my tribe.

where I live.

and Pouroto Ngaropo was my name.

I've had the privilege and honor to be a cultural advisor

to the prime minister of New Zealand,

the very honorable Helen Clark.

You can only run so far from a spiritual world

and from a Maori point of view...

we are both spirit,

and human,.

Over the last 200 years

there has been a process of colonization

where a lot of our own beliefs and values

have been replaced.

It's important to hold fast to traditional Maori beliefs,

Maori culture, Maori customs and practices,

in particular... Maori spirituality.

Those that are believers, those who have the knowledge

and recognition and respect for the spiritual realm

know there are things in the spiritual world

which are positive

and there are also spirits that are of a negative nature.

What else was talked about at the meeting?

There was a lion statue

which had actually been stolen several weeks before

from the Greytown Hotel.

Jan's sister, she had taken it off

from Greytown, which was a lion, a white lion.

-It's so heavy. -Oh it hurts my muscles.

My recollection was is

that they stole the lion

because they thought it would be a meaningful symbol

to have decorating the house.

John had a tattoo of a lion,

the lion in fact was one of the family symbols

and a symbol of their sports group.

My name is Heather Kavan,

I'm a lecturer at Massey University.

I research extraordinary religious experiences.

I made a study of the Moses manslaughter trial

and felt a connection with the case

because I was raised on Wainuiomata

and Wainuiomata is a place, well it's suburbia,

it's surrounded by three hills, very cutoff,

but there are pockets of intense spirituality.

My name is Tamati Cairns,

I'm from Wainuiomata or resident of Wainuiomata

and have been since 1981.

I used to deliver the social work program back home.

At one particular session we had Hohepa Kereopa,

took us down to the little stream in Waymanner, he said,

"Choose a little stone," he says,

"Now name your stone around someone

or something special in your life."

So we all did

and then Hohepa conducted traditional karakia

I named my

after my ,

who's in this photo,

and after karakia he said,

"Well, if your heart is where you decision was

and you believe in the power of karakia,

then that stone is now a

In the case of the lion Janet believed

that there was something wrong.

That condition is in the eyes of the believer.

Not in our interpretation and translation,

or what we think it is, it is what it is.

Family members accompany Janet

to the small flat in Wainuiomata

which was actually the home of her grandfather.

We set up the bedroom for Janet to sleep in,

but she didn't want to sleep in there

and she slept in Karl's bed in the lounge.

I was brought up to know about spirits and all of that,

but how I was brought up, when you take something from

or wherever it was taken,

yes she would be hit, something will happen to you,

but it always hits the weakest.

And because Janet being

the sickly one out of all of them,

yes, it would have hit Janet.

-About midnight Alene rang,

says we've got to get 'round to Dad's

'cause sister Ollie, or Janet's mom,

she was starting to get scared.

No no no...

No no no...

-We were up all Sunday night with her.

-They contacted an uncle, Jimmy Rahi,

a tohunga, a Maori priest if you like.

The prosecution didn't question

the calling in the tohunga.

It was entirely appropriate in Maori culture.

Tohunga is the medium

between the spiritual and the physical,

the axis mundi.

It's like consulting the pastor of a church.

They would trust absolutely

in the tohunga's advice given them.

That advice was, you know, was like cause root.

It was only until Jimmy came out

that were told that it was...

makutu.

Tell me about the curse,

what do you mean when you say the curse?

It's...

like a Maori curse.

It kind of makes you... mentally sick I think it is.

It's kind of hard to explain.

Makutu is not something

that might be regarded as an oddity,

it is simply part and parcel

of a Maori understanding of life.

In traditional times makutu

was used as a means of protection

or a revenge mechanism

if someone had killed or hurt your family.

It's really cursing them and damaging their soul,

their mind, their heart and who they are.

It's extremely difficult

for a Pakeha New Zealand European person

to get information from Maori

about makutu

but I did manage to find one piece of information

which is a PHD thesis written by Clive Clinton.

Maori told him that they often thought

that white Pakeha doctors

misdiagnosed makutu afflictions

as psychiatric illnesses.

What happened next?

Blessed her with water, you know like a church christening

and the karakia to ward off the evil.

You never talk about this sort of thing, you know.

In 1814 our ancestors were introduced to Christianity

and only in the Bay of Islands

and now that's become sort of one of the ways

in how our people see our own concepts.

There was a whole shift away

from the spiritual structure of Maori society

and now we are confronted

with makutu,

how well do we understand actually what's happening.

And what is it that we're doing

to ensure we have the right advice

around us?

At this point Jimmy Rahi had a revelation,

a revelation

that would change the course of events dramatically.

He said that he had a vision of three claws and Janet.

He advised the family

that they had to return the stone lion to Greytown

because it had a mate there that was missing it

and that it was very important that they were reunited.

Jimmy said

the lions had been together for over 100 years.

And what did Jimmy do?

I think he blessed the

and he said the lion had to go back.

A spiritual possession is a very serious matter,

it's a life and death thing, isn't it?

The tohunga's role is to protect life,

to look after the spiritual and protect the family.

So the following day on a Tuesday

there was a convoy, about eight or nine vehicles

went over to the Wairarapa from Wainuiomata,

back to the Greytown Hotel.

From that point on many of them

didn't in fact even go to work for a week,

they were with her all the time, they kept watch over her,

they were dedicated to her welfare.

Janet was there, Jimmy Rahi was there, Janet's namesake,

her paternal grandmother was there,

we know that because there was an incident

that alarmed a lot of people.

Janet.

No no no no no no no no no no,

no you, no you, no you, no you, no no,

you shouldn't even be here.

What're you doing here?

-No no no no. -Come on girl calm down.

No no no no.

Calm down, are you alright?

- When this car stops I'm gonna kill you. - -Janet!

When this car stops I'm gonna kill you,

I'm gonna kill you.

I'm gonna kill you!

I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you.

And what happened over at Greytown?

We had parked outside of a pub

...and we walked around the back and the lion was taken out.

In the spiritual domain of Maoridom

it's all about goodness and love, not about death.

It's done now girl.

I believe within my heart

they would know within their family...

You're alright girl.

...that through the power of prayer,

through the power of goodness,

all these curses can be lifted.

Apparently in the hours that followed she improved,

everyone felt like there had been quite a weight lifted

and things were going to improve from that time on.

We came back to Wainilly from Greytown

and I think everybody went to Karl's

and then we had feed of-- of fish and chips.

The tohunga said to them, "Well, you know,

I've done what I can now,

you've returned the lion and she looks much better."

I think this is one of the tragic turning points

of what happened.

What Uncle's been saying is that Janet's...

Out of the three things that were in her,

I think two of them was to do with the lion

and the last one was to do with...

her... Shane.

It had to do with her partner

and she was getting mental and verbal abuse from him.

Uncle Jimmy said that he'd done his part,

but he wouldn't do the relationship with Shane part,

that was for the family to do.

Unfortunately some scheduled medical treatment

required the tohunga

to be hospitalized for a number of days

so that took him away from being able

to be brought back in to help the family

when things didn't go well.

We were a close family

and we'd always get together to solve our problems.

And the people who've passed on

are always there to guide you.

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

Addressing the demon that they believed was inside her,

they said over and over and over again.

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

Coming, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

The money, the money, the money.

That's that's that's that's

that's that's that's that's that's that's.

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

She was trying to tell us something,

it was like a jigsaw,

trying to put the pieces together to work it out

and then when we did, it would write itself out.

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

♪ Go with peace and love ♪

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Lord Jesus we have come together in your name

and it is written that whatever we ask shall be given.

We ask for complete and full healing for Janet Moses.

We ask this in your name, Jesus,

thank you lord.

We have received your blessings for this child...

...and love.

...amen.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Everyone to do their waters

and clear themselves first

before the karakia.

Then in the middle of the circle

surrounded by everyone holding hands,

saying the karakia.

Jan's waters to be done.

Go with peace and love.

- Drink it. - Go with peace and love.

This family had a long association with water,

they had rituals of which they'd learned

from their grandmother and they used to talk about,

I can remember during the trial,

they would talk about doing their waters

to safeguard themselves.

Everyone must believe in their heart

that this will happen,

not just in their heads or saying the words,

it takes just one person not to believe in their heart

and it will not work.

But they all seemed to do it

and the defense generally was

she consented

to being involved in this process

and they, the participants genuinely believed

that what they were doing was to help her.

But this is a family that

deeply respected their elders

and who's Janet to question

that they're doing what they're doing in her best interests?

They didn't ask or consider the question

whether Janet was consenting.

She could have said, "No, I don't want any part of this."

From time to time she was sitting outside

having a cigarette with her cousins.

She could've just got up and walked away.

And she didn't.

There were two Janet's,

there was the Janet who went outside, had a smoke break,

was happy to go back inside when it was time to start again

and then there was the Janet who screamed, she yelled.

There were two Janets

so who do you decide is the one that consented.

No no no no no.

No no no no no.

No no no no no no no.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

No no no no no no no no no no.

Get out, get out of her!

You leave her alone. You cannot have her!

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

My name is Viv Bebbington

and I live right opposite the house.

I could hear everything, chanting inside and stomping,

boom boom boom boom, over here you know?

It was deafening here.

Go with peace and love.

Mind you there's so many people, it was apes there,

that place was chocker, man,

but some of them couldn't get in.

One of Janet's paternal relatives suggested,

"Let's get in another tohunga."

The Rawiri family didn't want to do that.

Certain one's weren't allowed

at the place where Janet was.

Certain one's weren't allowed in,

I'm talking like ministers and all of that, I mean why?

These people could've helped.

When John come past, he said,

"I'll keep my daughter company," he come past,

they wouldn't let him in the house,

it's bloody sad because John would've got other help

I'm sure, I'm sure, he would've got other help.

I'm not a minister but I'll normally do that,

address people who are sick, that's why I went up there,

but a lot of it was,

they weren't too sure what was happening.

A lot of people want to know more about their...

, culture?

They want to know more about their culture.

But they don't know the language

and they don't know the protocol

and they think they can just do this, they're gonna do that,

if you don't know, well you do it the wrong way,

well, that's what happens.

Wednesday evening things really started to intensify

within that flat.

There's mixed testimony

over why Janet wanted to be in the shower.

One theory is that

because she frequently showered her grandmother who died,

she wished to, you know, go back and recreate

that nostalgic experience for herself.

When Janet got up,

she'd head to the shower,

she turned it on, hot you know,

and I turned it back to cold.

They were saying that was our weapon kind of thing

against the demon.

Was cold water.

Keep the water cold.

Keep it cold, no no no girl.

We love you girl, it's all good, it's all good.

Come on, we love you girl.

-You could see the blackness rising up from her eyes,

and they would...

just get real big.

Don't fight, don't struggle, we love you,

stay under the cold, that's it.

But who said,

"Evil spirits don't like cold water?"

-She did come right,

spit up all this mucus.

-It was wiped up with-- using a towel

and then it was decided that the makutu was on the towel

and that no one else could use the bathroom

where the toilet and shower were located.

Out came the vomit, out came the demon.

The purpose of the water,

then turned from the purification of the body

to an instrument to cause vomiting and so it escalated.

Janet, Janet!

Where did,

So Shane was around.

Did Janet want to see him?

Nobody had asked her.

She couldn't make decisions for herself.

Come.

Janet.

Jan!

Janet!

He was part of the problem.

Janet!

That's what we've been doing as a family,

to keep him away from her, to get her well again.

She don't want to see you.

We're taking care of your shit.

You don't need to be here.

It started a downward spiral if you like,

the family lacking any sort of external contact.

It was so closed and...

insular and suffocating.

Look at her eyes,

look at her eyes.

Janet?

You lie down, come on girl.

Whoever wasn't in there for that

at that time will never understand.

Come on girl, come on, come on.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Just imagine the pressure, the fear, the anxiety,

the panic that comes down

to your-- actually-- you know,

your love for that person

to stay there and to endure it.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

These people were so sleep deprived,

some of them hadn't had sleep for four, five days.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

They was carrying on doing their thing.

All of us here

were used to the quietness of the place,

not all that noise.

Go with peace and love.

But what can you do?

No one called the police, pull the curtains, and you know...

I've seen enough, that's it.

I said we needed to get together again as a family.

Some of us hadn't seen our children for...

two, three days.

It was about a dozen of our babies.

Me and Jan's mom,

we tried to make them comfortable.

She kept wanting to go to the shower.

Something was saying the evil spirits wanted hot water.

She didn't like the cold water really.

Drink it girl, come on.

You will not give in to this

Throw it up, girl.

We were in there with her for ages,

felt like bloody hours.

The power was so strong

and here's us fighting it.

And the father was there, him too.

You gotta get out.

Do you know who I am?

Do you know who I am?

I was so exhausted when I came out of there.

It seemed to go on for ages, yeah.

But then suddenly she-- she just came back,

good as gold.

With the Janet of old.

Good as gold.

You need to come home with me.

Several times Gerald Moses asked Janet

to leave with him.

He vowed that he was going to return the next morning

and collect his daughter

regardless of her reluctance to leave with him.

When things calmed down,

we got our baby back in the bed,

and we tried to pacify her

even though we knew she wasn't right.

Everyone was crying,

we were so relieved that she'd calmed down.

We let her get some rest.

We felt that she was coming back to herself.

We sat around waiting for her to wake up.

And she'd wake up,

walk around,

go back to sleep.

Janet changed again.

I went to sleep

and when I woke up it was a catastrophe.

Hey Janet, you alright, Janet?

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

John!

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming!

It was at that point

Janet made quite a large change.

She said that she wanted to lay down her life for her family

to sacrifice herself during...

this immanent battle.

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming,

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

What happened?

They're coming, they're coming.

They're coming, they're coming.

They're coming, they're coming, they're coming.

Leave us alone.

She had a necklace like a bone carving

that she got from her nan.

They were saying that... the demon

was getting all its strength from the bone carving.

Johnny, get the scissors.

Okay, just-- no, come on, just a moment,

you'll feel better come on.

Come on.

Come on you'll feel better, come on, come on.

That's it.

Lie down, come on.

Get some water.

Yep, come on Janet, some water, drink some water.

Come on, come on.

Come on. This is good for you, alright?

That's gonna clean it out, come on.

-One more. -One more.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

- Give me some water. - Go with peace and love.

- Go with peace and love. - More water.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

The children had no access to the bathroom,

in fact nobody had any access to the bathroom.

When people needed to relieve themselves

they did so into... diapers and nappies and towels

and just into... the clothes that they were wearing,

so it became an increasingly...

strange behavior.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Come on Jan, come on baby, come on.

Go with peace and love.

We love you, we're gonna get it from you now.

Come on girl, good girl, have a bit more.

Go with peace and love, come out from her now!

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

It was initially Janet that was fighting him.

It was the demon inside of her...

and... the demon was like pretty feisty and everything.

I can remember her saying...

like...

"Fuck this."

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

You know we kept thinking it was Shane

that was doing this to our niece.

He said, "no no it was that lion."

It was revenge for splitting them up.

The room was intensely hot, a furnace.

Everything by this stage was drenched.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Water was rising in the kitchen

so I stuck steel and put a hole in the floor.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

Go with peace and love.

All the eyes of our children were going strange,

evil,

and you could see all these things racing around in them.

You've got something in your eye

and it's racing around in there.

How would you get it out?

Without putting your hand in there to grab it out?

Go with peace and love.

Some of the people were thinking to themselves

we should take Janet to a hospital,

but they weren't the leaders.

To even think about saying,

"stop, this might not be right,"

they felt they couldn't do it

because if they did well then perhaps they too

were gonna be cursed

and they might end up in Janet's position.

It is the power of the group and what's happening.

I think evil was in each and everyone of us

'cause we were doing things we wouldn't normally do.

And then they made a rule

that you weren't to look into Janet's eyes

in case you too became possessed.

And was Janet talking?

Did she say anything?

There was one part where...

Janet goes,

"Auntie stop, just let me have a breather."

Then what happened?

They were doing Joshi,

trying to make him, spit up all the yucky stuff in him

then I remember they did it to Les, did her,

and then I remember...

they... done it to me too.

I don't feel like they were trying to hurt us.

They would've had their reasons.

Get off me it hurts, fuck off!

They continued on with the teenage girl for hours.

She finally broke free at the same time

that Janet also managed,

with half a dozen people holding her down,

to break free.

However the group interpreted this as

the makutu... doubling its strength

by unifying the teenage girl and Janet

and so these young women who had broken free

were pulled back.

She became the second lion from Greytown

and it was her and Janet... working together.

These were... sensible people,

they worked, played sport and lived great kiwi life.

Everyone just got caught up in it.

Hysteria is not an uncommon state.

Most of us at times have felt a bit hysterical

and world history is littered with examples,

where very very extreme things are done

on the basis of a set of beliefs

that to many might not make any sense.

I think what's going on here

is what would happen to any of us

if we were stuck in a room over five days

with no sleep having little to eat, rhythmic chanting,

40 degree heat, stomping, intense fear,

I think we would all go berserk in that situation.

This is... the human condition.

I know most people won't understand.

Makutu is evil.

You have to find a way of putting it right,

to get the person back to normal again.

I wish I had someone

who could relate this to the police, 'cause...

I'm finding it very hard to do on my own.

The mechanism in dying through drowning

on dry land or through a motion in water is the same.

The water gets into the lungs,

that causes the membrane in the lungs to froth up

and produces a frothy liquid

that gets absorbed further into the lungs

that collapses some of the air sacs.

That compromises the ability

to circulate oxygen in the body.

Vocal chords go into spasm,

the heart goes into abnormal rhythm,

she swallows her tongue.

At one point her jaw locks

and instead of thinking,

"Perhaps we've gone too far,"

participants thought that...

her jaw had been locked by the makutu

to stop them from getting even more water into it.

So they pried her jaw open...

and...

died.

So when did you realize that Janet

was getting to the point where her body was passing away?

I didn't.

When did you notice she'd passed?

I still didn't.

We were just trying to get the other girl right.

The whole place was full of evil.

I tried to do CPR.

I'm glad I know how to do it.

Then I turned to my wife...

"I love you darling."

Because I thought, yeah I was meant to go too.

Yeah.

Because I've been... a leader for the family,

and I thought they'd get me too.

Jan was on the floor,

there was all my brothers and sisters around,

trying to bring her back to life.

We were trying to work out if it was in the house.

All of the children...

This makutu was in the house.

As soon as they realized Janet had passed,

they amped up the efforts on the teenage girl.

Get out of there you will not have her.

You will leave, you will leave her alone, you get out.

They've lost one, you know,

-...don't need to lose another. -You will leave her!

That went on for some hours after Janet had died.

You get out, you get out!

Come on, come on girl.

I was actually scared.

I said, "You're scaring me,"

and then she said,

"Well you're scaring me."

Yeah, they were trying to hold down my arms

'cause I was like scratching

and punching and kicking people.

And how come you tried to do that?

I think it was 'cause of the demon inside of me.

I just went pretty psycho.

Did you say anything?

I can't exactly remember,

but I was going something like,

"Stop, you are fucking drowning me,"

something like that,

"I'm gonna die."

It's just, you know, I went blank

I just went total blank

and I think that's when they nearly lost me

when I went total blank.

I don't know, I actually don't know

what the demon looks like.

I don't know what they were looking for,

what they were saying and everything.

About lunch time or late morning...

one of the local Maori

was telephoned and he went 'round to the flat.

A man who they called Pakika Dave

who is a white European man who is...

a spiritual conduit

and a man whose spirituality they respected.

He said he felt a sense of evil

and a spiritual message came through to him

seemingly from the deceased grandmother.

It's gone.

We just love our family so much, you know,

that we would never ever

do this sort of thing to our kids.

Tohunga says that Mom's very angry...

because we had the kids bottled up in there for...

I don't even know how long for.

And after blessing everybody who was there,

including Janet,

he advised that the other member

of the family should be taken to a hospital.

It was a desperate plea

from a 14 year old girl, "Stop it you're drowning me,"

as relatives forced water down her throat

during an exorcism.

Janet Moses.

Janet Moses,

Janet Moses died during a--

Killing a young mom.

-Killing Janet Moses. -During an exorcism.

-Exorcism. -Exorcism ceremony.

This has been a very controversial case.

Torture and death are just not acceptable.

I've seen dozens...

Family members desperate

to hide the faces of the accused.

Don't fucking take photos of me.

We're already in enough fucking tragedy as it is.

Janet was young mother who lost her life.

It is absolutely critical that we understand

how this happens

and inevitably hold people to account

for what has happened.

What are the authorities to do

when a human being is killed in those circumstances.

You have two charges, manslaughter,

and one charge of cruelty to a child.

There is no suggestion whatever

that any of the people charged for Janet

had been using drugs.

The odd thing about the case

was deeply held spiritual Maori beliefs were being aired

in such a formal white...

colonial, if you like, system.

The court bends over backwards to be sensitive,

but when they described what had happened

it was like reading a scene from the Salem witch trials.

The family belief was based on misconceptions

and misinformation,

none of the expert witnesses had ever heard

of pouring large volumes of water

into the person afflicted

as a way of dealing with makutu

and as it turned out the lion

was one of a pair of concrete garden ornaments

that had been purchased new by the owner of the hotel.

He had smeared yogurt on the statues to try and weather them

and make them look older than they were,

but they certainly weren't objects of antiquity at all.

As the trial progressed

their most precious spiritual experiences

were described repeatedly as fixed false beliefs.

It just got to the point where I couldn't look at them,

it would make me cry.

I think all of the lawyers involved,

both prosecution and defense, could see the family dynamic

and we all felt for these people.

Public opinion was divided,

but the jury looked... sympathetic.

To breaking news now,

and the jury in the Janet Moses exorcism trial in Wellington

has just returned with a verdict, Simon.

It's been a long wait for that jury

to come back with their verdict,

lot of people at court wanting to hear that verdict,

here's what happened.

Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.

Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.

These five defendants

found guilty of manslaughter after a five week trial

and almost two days of deliberation.

Three other family members were acquitted

and walked free from court.

The two family leaders John Rawiri and Glenys Wright

received community detention

allowing them to live at home under a curfew.

They and their co-offenders all aunts of Janet Moses

also sentenced to community service,

supervision and to undertake cultural education programs.

This was a just response to a tragic death.

The jury by their verdicts held the family members

who killed Janet criminally responsible for her death

and it's a recognition of the sanctity of life.

Typical sentences for manslaughter

are four to six years

but none of the justifications

for sending people to prison seemed to be present here.

There was deterrent value here.

Punishment, well, what purpose would that serve?

And I know a lot of people are very cynical

of our system of justice

but as misguided as it appears to us

in the cold hard light of day,

they genuinely believed that they were assisting her.

Must've been about a week after.

We had a meeting at the ma-lay

And we all decided to knock the place down,

knock it down.

I was sad to see that, man, it's bloody sad.

Every morning I get up and I look straight out my window

and see nothing, see nothing.

Yes, bloody... real sad news.

Sometimes you can go past those flats

and you can still see a cloud that's above it.

You don't do those things.

You don't muck around with all those things.

I've heard that they still believe

that the curse is alive in their family and it's passed on.

It's understandable that they could believe that.

Beliefs really are nothing more than conclusions

that we've drawn on the basis of our experience.

There is still the possibility that a makutu

did in fact attack Janet.

Nobody knows, they could've been right all along.

There's no doubt in my mind she was possessed

either from a Maori or from a clinical point of view,

she was unwell,

and the curse

it's an attitude the family continued to carry on.

What they will hand on to the future generations

is really in their hands.

They have to deal with the fact that

despite the best that they tried to do for her

in that situation,

she died.

I didn't know Janet,

I knew Janet through-- through the investigation

so you only ever know Janet

through the eyes of other people, from what they tell you,

but as a mother myself

it really resonated with me.

We had two young children

who for the rest of their lives don't have their mom

and in fact they were so small that the only memory

they will ever have of their mother,

is memories that other people give them of her.

She was a wonderful mother,

that's what I would tell them, how much she loved them

and how much she cared about them.