Agnes Ali'iva'a, [twin]

Agnes Ali'iva'a had faced more than her share of struggles, but she was still a kid who was full of life. She was tall and beautiful, with a lovely smile, according to a sex-abuse counsellor who'd known her well. She was "like any 12-year-old girl". She loved shopping. She had lots of friends. She loved music. She was smart, too. At Balmoral School, a combined primary and intermediate in Mt Eden, Auckland, she was a conscientious pupil, one of her teachers told Metro magazine in 1992. "She expressed herself very well. Her co-ordination and physical skills were superb. She loved playing volleyball." She was religious – she kept a Bible in her desk at school and liked to sing in the choir of the Samoan church she attended every Sunday. But as the Metro article, by Carroll du Chateau, reported, Agnes was also a child who was repeatedly let down by those she should have been able to trust. At 10, she and her twin sister Annie moved in with a church pastor to take pressure off their struggling mother. Eighteen months later, they were removed after allegations that Agnes was being sexually abused. The case didn't make it to court, but the pastor was later jailed for having sex with another 14-year-old girl in his congregation. After that, Agnes was a runaway for several months. Once back home, she again clashed badly with her mother, who had come to New Zealand from Samoa for a better life but ended up barely coping as she raised a large family on benefits. Agnes was in the habit of jumping out of her window and going wandering from 10pm till the early hours. She was out wandering on the night of February 13, 1992. The next morning, Valentine's Day, Agnes was found face-down in 50cm of water in a ditch near Keith Hay Park in Mt Roskill. In death, she was let down once more. At first, police assumed the unidentified woman was aged closer to 20 than 12, based on her physical maturity. She was naked from the waist up, and her trackpants were inside-out. She was wearing one sock and no shoes. She also had a number of unexplained injuries: bruises, cuts and scratches. The specific cause of death was drowning, but the circumstances were, clearly, extremely suspicious. Yet for whatever reason – racism, indifference to the fate of a presumed runaway, incompetence, or some combination of these things – police made little effort to establish the circumstances of her death. The scene examination was minimal. No tests were conducted to establish whether she had been sexually assaulted. Agnes' mother, who had been in hospital with her dying mother, didn't learn that her daughter was dead until four days later. In other words, not long after a half-naked, bruised and cut 12-year-old girl had been found dead in a ditch, police decided there were no suspicious circumstances and the case was closed. Complaints against the police by Agnes' family slowly gained traction and in 1996, following an internal inquiry, the case was reopened and police apologised to Agnes' family for the bungled investigation, though no disciplinary action was taken. A donated headstone was finally placed on her previously unmarked grave in Waikumete Cemetery and Agnes' mother and twin sister, by now living in Brisbane, attended the unveiling. Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/faces-of-innocents/80915025/faces-...

The Archivist: The Girl in the Ditch. A story about a murder. From Metro N°134, August 1992. https://www.metromag.co.nz/society/the-archivist-the-girl-in-the-ditch