‘I know who did it’: Baby Ru’s mum urges killer to tell the truth
Tuesday, 22 October 2024
Today marks a year since Baby Ru suffered a fatal skull fracture at a Lower Hutt home.
Police say their homicide investigation has been hampered by a ‘cover-up’, and that the three adults who were present at the Poole St property haven’t been ‘fully forthcoming’ about what happened.
One of those adults, the toddler’s mother, Storm Wall, acknowledges she’s a suspect, but says she’s innocent and knows who the killer is. Sam Sherwood reports.
Storm Wall sits at a picnic table clutching a framed photo of her son.
It’s been a year since the wee boy - born Ruthless-Empire Souljah Rhind Shephard Wall, but better known as Baby Ru - suffered a fatal skull fracture at a Lower Hutt home, three days short of his second birthday.
Wall was one of three people who lived at the property at the time and has been under a cloud of suspicion ever since.
Her son’s death is a case that’s seared into the public conscience - a child homicide where police say their investigation has been hampered by a “cover-up” and a group of adults who haven’t been “fully forthcoming” about what happened inside the weatherboard state house in Poole St, Taitā, on October 22, 2023.
“There are inconsistencies from all three compared to the evidence and facts established by police during the investigation,” Detective Inspector Nick Pritchard says.
However, Wall says she has told police everything she knows, including how the severe injuries that killed her son were inflicted.
“I’m innocent. I didn’t do anything.”
She has a message for the other two people who were in the home at the time - Rosie Morunga and her partner Dylan Ross.
“Tell the truth. The truth will prevail.”
‘Life there was good’
Baby Ru was born five weeks premature on October 25, 2021 in Hamilton.
Wall was 20 at the time, and she says she and her son were “showered with love” by her wider whānau, who were keen to help her navigate life as a first-time parent.
But trouble lay ahead.
In December 2022, Baby Ru’s uncle contacted Oranga Tamariki with concerns the child was being exposed to drugs where he was living. The following month, Wall’s relationship with her son’s father ended. Then, a few months later, she left her mother’s home after a disagreement.
Unable to secure emergency housing, Wall and Baby Ru were invited to live with her childhood friend, Dylan Ross, and his partner Rosie Morunga, at their home in Lower Hutt.
Wall says she hoped it would provide the opportunity for a fresh start. She planned to study law at Victoria University and found a nearby kindergarten her son could attend.
“Life there was good,” Wall says of the first couple of weeks living at their new home.
Morunga and Ross took Baby Ru to the local pool, and an indoor children’s playground, and appeared to be getting on well together.
“I thought it was just a good aunty-uncle bond with bubba.”
But less than a month after arriving, her son was dead.
‘He looked tired and drowsy’
On October 21, Wall says she left Baby Ru while she went and had a lie down, some time between 8pm and 9pm.
A couple of hours later, the boy was brought into her room, and he slept in the same bed as her.
Wall says she woke about 8.30am the next day. Baby Ru still appeared to be sleeping, so she got up and started preparing for a planned visit to her cousin’s house in Porirua.
When she returned to check on her son a short time later, she found he was still not awake, which she thought was unusual.
“He didn’t wake up to greet me how he usually did. He looked tired and drowsy.”
Wall says that after checking her son’s nappy, and putting him in his highchair to have breakfast, he still wasn’t alert.
“I kept saying, ‘Son, son’ and his eyes were as though he was squinting.”
Concerned, Wall says she yelled out to Ross and Morunga, asking what happened the previous evening.
It was then, she says, that she noticed a piece of fabric around Baby Ru’s neck. She did not know how it got there.
Exactly what Wall claims happened next can’t be reported for legal reasons.
What we can say is that she says she saw her son being assaulted.
“I tried to grab baby and pick him up … do something to check him if he was breathing.”
However, he was unresponsive.
Wall says she couldn’t find her cellphone, so one of the others in the house called 111.
But rather than waiting for an ambulance, Wall, Morunga and Ross drove Baby Ru to Hutt Hospital.
“I tried to do CPR … I tried to talk to him. I tried everything to just hear him breathe or say something,” Wall says.
When they arrived at the hospital, Baby Ru was still unresponsive. Wall says she was “crying and screaming” as she carried him into the emergency department.
He was declared dead about 30 minutes later.
‘Do the right thing’
Police launched a homicide investigation, dubbed Operation Huia, and in the days that followed revealed Baby Ru had died from severe head injuries.
“This level of violence towards a child is difficult to fathom,” Detective Inspector Nick Pritchard told a media conference.
The three adults who lived at the Poole St home with the boy were all “persons of interest” to the investigation, he said.
Pritchard appealed for sightings of a grey-green 1994 Nissan Sentra sedan – registration TE6972 – between the morning of October 22 and the afternoon of October 24 across the Wellington region.
That car was used to transport Baby Ru to Hutt Hospital. It was then driven back to the Poole St property and was used to remove items that were “directly relevant” to the homicide investigation, Pritchard said.
Those items included a hard-drive used to record security camera footage at the property, and a duvet, both of which have never been recovered.
A year-on, Pritchard is frustrated, but remains confident the case will be solved.
The investigation has established Baby Ru was fatally injured on the morning of his death, but it remains unclear how, he says.
“It could be a number of things such as an object or instrument or force on a floor or something of that nature.”
Pritchard says Wall, Morunga and Ross have all been interviewed by police. None of them have been “fully forthcoming”.
He believes the investigation has been hampered by attempts to “cover-up” what happened. At least one of the persons of interest had “deliberately altered the crime scene” when they removed the hard drive and the duvet cover, and had potentially moved other things around inside the home.
“We have three adults in a house, a young child suffers serious head injuries, he’s taken to hospital and it’s not until a post-mortem examination in the days following when cause of death is established that things change, explanations change. So there’s certainly from the evidence we’ve gathered an attempt to conceal this crime from the beginning.”
Police have not spoken with Wall, Morunga or Ross recently, Pritchard says.
“We're at a situation where they have provided their accounts. There are aspects that are inconsistent with the evidence gathered. So I'm not ruling out that we will turn and speak to these people again but I would urge them to come forward first and tell us exactly what happened that day.
“Be accountable because when you take a step back and look it's horrific an adult could inflict this type of injury on a young, defenceless child.”
Police are considering charges relating to disposing of evidence, he says.
Morunga and Ross previously declined to comment when approached by media.
‘Justice will come’
Storm Wall says living with a cloud of suspicion hanging over her, while mourning the loss of her son, has been very challenging.
She’s contemplated suicide and is undergoing counselling.
The 23-year-old says she’s been spoken to by police several times and has told them everything she knows.
She knows some people won’t believe her when she says she had nothing to do with her son’s death.
“The time will come when the proof is out there. Justice will come,” she says.
“He was only one, turning two. Justice is all we need. He was only an innocent baby.”
Asked what an arrest would mean for her, Wall begins to cry.
“I would just be more than happy for him,” she says.
The picnic table she’s sitting at is in a park where she and Baby Ru used to visit before moving to Lower Hutt.
As she looks at the photo she’s holding of her son, she recalls a boy who loved nature, singing, and dancing in the mirror - the “happy go-lucky” toddler whose favourite foods included a Big Mac cut into small portions, Pringles, and Poppa Jacks.
Every Wednesday, she and her father used to take Baby Ru to a bakery, then op shopping. The wee boy always walked away with a gift from his grandfather.
Friday would be Baby Ru’s third birthday, he only got to celebrate one while he was alive.
Wall says she and her whānau plan to release helium balloons to mark the occasion. She will also buy him presents - something she intends to do every year - and there will be cake.
“We still celebrate him as he’s still here in spirit,” she says.
“I just wish I could … spoil him.”