NZ Justice: Killer Beez Gang Member Latu Kepu, Convicted of Manslaughter of Prison Guard, Sentenced to Time Served, Laughs in Court

December 7, 2022

He gained infamy after his conviction for killing prison guard and former US marine Jason Palmer in 2010. At the time Palmer was working at Spring Hill prison where Kepu was locked up after already chalking up convictions for assaulting a police officer and a pregnant woman.

Justice Sally Fitzgerald earlier agreed to a five-year extended supervision order (ESO) including daily curfew from 10pm to 6am and an electronic monitoring bracelet.

Kepu, 34, had been in prison for 12 years when he was paroled in April last year with just a few months left on his sentence.

ESOs are reserved for former inmates who are believed to pose “a real and ongoing risk of further sexual or violent offending”.

Kepu’s history of violence and run-ins with the legal system stretches back two decades, including a 2004 Youth Court conviction for aggravated robbery in which he used a beer bottle to assault a taxi driver, along with more Youth Court convictions for robbery and assault a year later.

He was ordered to serve a sentence of two years and eight months in 2009 for a variety of offences that included kicking a police officer in the head six times, pushing a woman who was seven months’ pregnant to the ground, threatening to kill another woman “because she was Samoan” and kicking another person in the head while punching someone who tried to call police.

Six years and four months was added to his prison term after he pleaded guilty to the May 2010 manslaughter of Palmer, 33, who was attacked as he opened the door to Kepu’s cell at the Waikato facility.