Man admits murdering Ariki Rigby after dispute over Mongrel Mob T-shirt
Saturday, 1 March 2025
Jimmy Heremaia has admitted murdering Ariki Rigby, 18, then setting fire to the car containing her body.
Heremaia killed Rigby after he was ‘de-patched’ by Mongrel Mob hierarchy because Rigby had been seen wearing a Mongrel Mob T-shirt.
Heremaia, 32, will be sentenced in April alongside another Mongrel Mob member, Ropine Paul, who admitted helping Heremaia set fire to the car.
The sister of Ariki Rigby says the family is relieved the man who killed her and then set fire to a car with her body in it has pleaded guilty.
Jimmy Heremaia admitted murdering Rigby following an argument about her wearing a Mongrel Mob T-shirt.
Heremaia, 32, pleaded guilty to charges of murder and arson in the High Court at Napier on Friday morning.
Rigby was 18 when she was killed. Her body was found in a burnt out car in a car park beside the Tukituki River on the outskirts of Havelock North on September 5, 2022.
The mid-90s dark grey Toyota Corona was first spotted and reported to police two days prior.
Anahera Rigbysaid she “feels really good” about Heremaia’s guilty plea.
He admitted murdering Ariki Rigby following an argument about her wearing a Mongrel Mob T-shirt.
“I don't know why it took that long for him to admit it though. But with all of the evidence he can't even get out of it.”
Rigby said she was happy with the police work that went into securing the guilty plea.
“Oh, they're amazing”, she told Stuff outside the court on Friday morning.
“I’m still blown away. You need to process all of it properly, but they did a great job and we're like happy about it.”
She said she her family is relieved.
“We can't wait for all of this to be over”.
A second man, Ropine Paul, 29, earlier this month pleaded guilty to a charge of being a party to the arson.
Following a police investigation that ran for two years Heremaia was arrested in Auckland on September 17.
According to court documents Heremaia met Rigby about three weeks before her death.
They formed a close connection and communicated with each other regularly.
Sometime between August 29 and 31, 2022, Rigby came into possession of a Mongrel Mob t-shirt.
Heremaia was a patched member of the Mongrel Mob’s Flaxmere chapter at the time.
Rigby, who lived in Auckland for most of 2022, wore the t-shirt on the morning of August 31 while she was in Hastings.
Another patched member of the Mongrel Mob saw her and confronted her about wearing the t-shirt
Rigby taunted that person, before running away – still wearing the t-shirt.
The Mongrel Mob only allows people affiliated with the gang to wear gang related regalia, clothing or symbols. Allowing anybody else to wear these items is regarded by the gang as a serious violation of their rules, especially if the non-gang member wearing the item is a female.
Heremaia was told by senior gang members to retrieve the t-shirt.
He found Rigby at an address in Flaxmere on the afternoon of August 31 and retrieved the t-shirt.
Two days later, on the afternoon of Friday, September 2, 2022, Heremaia received a text message from his sister, who told him his Mongrel Mob patch had been collected from their family home in Omahu, Hastings.
The gang had taken Heremaia’s patch because he had been ‘de-patched’ due to the fact Rigby had worn the t-shirt.
At 7:22pm that day Heremaia received a text message from Rigby, in which she said she had been involved in an altercation in Napier.
She asked Heremaia if he would like to go to Tauranga with her to get away from Napier and the Hawke’s Bay Mongrel Mob.
At 7.30pm Heremaia received a text message from his Mongrel Mob hierarchy.
It read “Find that FLAXMERE tee-shirt dog, get it done”.
Heremaia replied to the text: “I am brother”.
A short time later he sent a Facebook message to a friend saying “I’m in my own shit, dogs took my patch and everything”.
At 9.49pm Heremaia met Rigby in Napier and Rigby got into the Toyota Corona that Heremaia was driving.
Heremaia then drove to Bay View, just north of Napier, and pulled the car over on a grass verge.
At 10:27pm Heremaia and Rigby were seen getting out of the car by a member of the public.
The member of the public recorded a partial registration of the car on her dash camera. Due to concerns she had she called police, believing what she had seen was suspicious and due to recent burglaries in the area.
Heremaia and Rigby then got back into the car and had an argument.
Rigby had a hammer with her, as she feared for her safety given what had occurred. During the argument Rigby swung the hammer at Heremaia.
Heremaia managed to block her, then overpowered her and took the hammer from her.
He then struck Rigby with the hammer twice to the head. This caused fatal injuries to her brain and skull which led to her death.
Heremaia then picked up Rigby’s body and put her in the backseat of the car.
He then drove towards the rural area of Puketapu.
At this stage he was in a panic, and was thinking about what to do and where to dispose of Rigby’s body.
At 10:34pm Heremaia sent three messages to Ropine Paul. At 10:42pm he called Paul and spoke to him for 90 seconds.
Heremaia drove towards Hastings. At some stage he made a Google search for “River parking”.
At 11:14pm he had a four-and-a-half-minute call with Paul, then drove to Paul’s house in Havelock North.
At some point he stopped the car and threw the hammer into a river.
Shortly 11.32pm Heremaia arrived at Paul’s house.
He asked Paul to go and buy him petrol. He also asked for a change of clothes and a blanket.
At 11:50pm Paul drove his father’s car to a petrol station in Havelock North and filled a petrol container with $70 of petrol, before returning to his home, where Heremaia was waiting.
Heremaia asked Paul if there were any reserves beside a river nearby. Paul used Google maps and found the River Road reserve, which was beside the Tukituki River.
At about 1:25am on Saturday, September 3, Heremaia and Paul drove to the reserve. Paul drove his father’s car. Heremaia drove the car containing Rigby’s body.
When they got to the reserve Paul stayed in his father’s car, while Hermaia poured petrol from the container onto, and throughout, the Toyota then set it on fire.
Paul then drove the pair back to his house.
When they arrived back at the house Heremaia contacted his sister, and asked her to take him to Wairoa.
At 2:23am Heremaia tried to remove evidence of the contact he had had that
evening with Rigby. He had communicated with her through a “Bob Apiata” Facebook profile.
While Heremaia was at Paul’s house, Paul woke his sister and asked her to drop Heremaia off at a location on the outskirts of Havelock North.
She dropped Heremaia there, where Heremaia’s sister and her son were waiting in their van.
Heremaia then contacted his aunt, who lived in Wairoa, and arranged for her to drive south and meet them about halfway along the Napier-Wairoa highway.
Heremaia’s sister drove him as far as Putorino, where he got out of her car and into his aunt’s car. His aunt then drove him back to Wairoa.
Once in Wairoa, Heremaia tried to cover his tracks by sending messages to his family telling them to delete messages he had sent them. He also unsent several messages he had sent to Paul between September 2 and 3.
In the following days Heremaia made it known to family and associates that he was still looking for Rigby to retrieve the t-shirt. This was an attempt by him to distance himself from her and to create an “alibi” that he was in Wairoa at the time she was killed.
The Toyota Corona that Heremaia had been driving, and which had been set alight containing Rigby’s body, belonged to his Mongrel Mob ‘captain’.
Heremaia told the ‘captain’ that the car had broken down and had been stolen.
In regards to Rigby, he told the ‘captain’ he was “still looking for that bitch”.
On September 6 Heremaia messaged his partner (and the mother of his children) that he needed to leave Hawke’s Bay and wanted to go to Auckland.
He told her that he couldn’t locate “that bitch” Rigby and he still needed to get his t-shirt from her.
He then sent his partner a message saying “Something bad gonna happen to me, I can feel it”.
In the following months Heramaia lived in South Auckland, making very few return trips to Hawke’s Bay.
While living in South Auckland he met a person staying at the same accommodation.
Unbeknown to Heremaia that person was an undercover police officer who was using the assumed name “Luke”.
Heremaia and “Luke” engaged in “work” on behalf of “Luke’s” “boss”, who was also an undercover police officer.
During a discussion between Heremaia the “boss” on September 13, 2024, Heremaia admitted killing Rigby.
“It was only me that did it,” he said.
Heremaia said that he had picked Rigby up, that she was on guard because other people had attacked her before he picked her up and that she had a hammer on her.
He said that Rigby went to swing so he “blocked it, pretty much grabbed it off her and … dong”.
He went on to say: “I … picked the girl up, she attacked me, so, yeah … I bashed her, threw her
in the back … torched the car”.
He also said that he had found Rigby and got the t-shirt back but that he had not been believed. He said that he was told to “take care of it”, so “I took care of it”.
He said the hammer he had thrown into the river wouldn’t be found after Cyclone Gabrielle.
He also said that he had burnt the clothes and shoes he was wearing when he killed Rigby.
On September 17 members of the Hawke’s Bay Police, who had travelled to Auckland, went to the address where Heremaia was staying.
He was arrested and charged with the murder of Rigby and the arson of the Toyota.
Heremaia chose to exercise his right to silence.
Paul, who had wanted to join the Mongrel Mob’s Notorious chapter at the time of the murder, became patched after the incident.
Heremaia appeared in court through a video link from prison before Justice Dale La Hood.
About 15 friends and family of Rigby were in court to hear him enter his guilty pleas.
Heremaia was remanded in custody to be sentenced in April.
Detective Inspector David De Lange of Eastern District Police said:
“Police acknowledge the guilty pleas entered today by Jimmy Heremaia, 32, the man charged with the murder of Ariki Rigby in 2022.
“Heremaia pleaded guilty to charges of murder and arson.
“We acknowledge Ariki’s whanau, who have waited so long to see the person responsible held accountable for her tragic death.
“We also acknowledge those Police staff who worked meticulously over a long period of time to piece together the evidence that has brought about this result today.”