Two men, one accused of murdering 18-year-old Ariki Rigby who was found in a burned-out car in a Hawke's Bay, can now be named. Thirty two-year-old Jimmy Heremaia, an orchard worker from Auckland, has been charged with her murder and with arson. Ropine Paul, 29, a labourer from Havelock North, is charged with being party to arson.
Rigby's body was found in a dark grey Toyota Corona in River Road Reserve near Havelock North in September 2022, during an unplanned holiday to see her father and stepmother. In a judgment today, Justice Paul Radich said he was not convinced by the defence argument that naming the pair would risk a fair trial or endanger their safety. The court can grant name suppression in circumstances where publication is likley to cause extreme hardship, endanger the saftey of any person, or create a real risk of prejudice to a fair trial.
Justice Radich said the threshold was high, and it had not been met in this case. The two men will stand trial at the High Court in Napier on 3 November 2025, with the case being set down for three weeks. When Rigby died, police failed to realise there was a dead body in the burned-out car when they first checked on it.
Officers visited the car after a caller told police on 3 September, 2022, that they thought they had seen the body of an animal on the floor in the back of the vehicle, but the body was not discovered until 5 September. The public gallery was packed with family members at the High Court in Napier in October ear.
