Libby Templeman killer's harrowing admission

BY CLIO FRANCIS

Hermanus Theodorus Kriel called her Libby and fiddled with his hands as he told a packed courtroom how he killed her.

With a soft, measured voice Kriel explained how he had done it; how he had closed his fists to beat the 15-year-old schoolgirl until she was unconscious and ripped off her clothes.

Kriel, known as Theo, was only 14 when he murdered Liberty Templeman on November 1, 2008, the warm, summer day when two young lives collided on a quiet river bank in Kerikeri.

He told the court he had never meant to strike her. But he had pushed her over in the stream and she wouldn't listen to his apology. He thought he would get in trouble. She swore at him, he said, so he hit her. Afterwards blood began to bubble from her mouth and he was frightened he would go to jail.

He had friends to see at the local gala the next day and a younger brother waiting at home. So he picked her up by her ankles and dragged her down to the water. He paused briefly and took off his black school shoes so they wouldn't get wet. He hid her body, face down, beneath a wild ginger plant.

Liberty was always happy. That's what everyone said as they recalled her short life in the air-conditioned room at the High Court in Whangarei. Her presence echoed in the courtroom, she had been a smiling child with big dreams. Her parents and younger brother had loved her deeply.

Her killer was a big boy. In stark comparison to his petite victim, Kriel stood at 6 foot three. Sometimes he would get teased at school. He liked to play Playstation and go mountain biking. Local residents thought he was gentle, he used to babysit some of their children.

Kriel didn't know Liberty very well, they ran in different groups. But occasionally they would text each other, and they were friends on social networking site Bebo.

His parents looked shell-shocked, two good, middle-class people condemned to watch their son confess to a horrific crime.

His mother, a pretty woman in summer dresses, sat each day with grim mask etched on her face. Her hands clenched, her gaze never leaving her teenage son.

Kriel's father was more stoic, a single tight nod in his son's direction when he left the dock. No flicker of emotion on his face as he heard his oldest child describe how he dragged Liberty's bleeding body down a bank and dumped her in the water.

Liberty's parents were heartbroken. They took the stand to speak about their daughter during the trial, they seemed strong and smart. They sat through horrific evidence about their daughter's final minutes with grimaces, but few tears. They were determined to be dignified for Liberty.

Kriel seemed curiously disconnected as he talked about her death. In a matter-of-fact tone he recalled how he had to grip her ankles to drag her to the river because her hands were too slippery from her own blood.

Crown prosecutor Mike Smith said Kriel had hit Liberty at least four times before she was knocked unconscious. Then he had ripped up her shirt, exposing her breasts and pulled down her pants. He exerted such force he broke off her purple necklace and star pendant and tore off her bra hooks. It was then that he strangled her, Mr Smith told the jury. Later, he pulled her body over a windbreak fence and left her in the stream.

It was never disclosed what police thought had prompted Kriel to attack.

After the killing the boy realised his shirt was covered in blood so he washed it upstream from Liberty's body. Then he biked home and took a shower before discarding the t-shirt in a plastic bag and throwing it in the garden.

That night Kriel sat on the couch and watched the Jim Carey comedy Liar, Liar. He texted his friends and talked to his parents. Around 10.30 Liberty's mother, Rebecca Templeman, called his cell-phone. She was polite but worried about where her daughter was. He told her she'd been happy last time he saw her.

Kriel said it took him a while to fall asleep that night.

Just before 11pm Liberty's father, Andrew Templeman, decided he had waited long enough to hear back from his missing daughter.

He drove through the night from Auckland to Kerikeri. When he arrived he stopped people on the street to ask if they had seen his daughter. He searched everywhere, he found nothing.

The next day was a Sunday. The annual school fair was on. Liberty's friends made missing person flyers and kept searching. Her father was at the police station, waiting desperately for news. Kriel was on his bike, helping search for a girl he knew was dead.

Sergeant Ross Laurie has been a cop in Kerikeri for 22 years. The day after Liberty went missing he went and visited the local boy who had been the last to see her alive. Something about his story didn't add up. As Mr Laurie drove back to town he passed an abandoned feijoa orchard he knew hadn't been searched by police. He circled back and walked through the long grass towards the small Wairoa stream. He saw something in the water which he at first thought was a mannequin. It was Liberty, floating face down.

He hurriedly rung the Kerikeri police station and told them to turn the radios off. Liberty's father was anxiously waiting beside them for news.

Three days later Andrew Templeman stood at the Auckland mortuary and identified Liberty's battered body.

In the end there was too much evidence.

On Friday November 7 at 4.05pm the police charged Kriel with the murder and indecent assault of Liberty.

In a small police interview room in Kaikohe police station the boy confessed to the killing. He told Detective Peter Hayes Liberty had hit him first after blaming him for pushing her over in the creek: "I got scared and I hit her back ... she fell on the ground. She wasn't moving but she was still breathing and I got scared that she was going to tell someone and I didn't want anyone to find out. So I strangled her. Then I pulled her into the river where no one could find her."

As the two-week long drew to a close there were still no answers. No explanation for Liberty's haunted parents why this tall, introverted boy had snuffed out the life of their red-headed girl. No clear answer as to why he beat her and strangled her and left her lungs to fill with water in that creek.

After a nine day trial a six-man, six-woman jury found Kriel guilty of her murder and indecent assault.

- © Fairfax NZ News