# E43 | The Masterton Massacre

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-veil-7494973/e43-the-masterton-massacre
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-veil-7494973/e43-the-masterton-massacre.md
Podcast: [The Veil](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-veil-7494973)
Published: 2026-07-27T12:01:00+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/theveil/episodes/e43-the-masterton-massacre
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68d0b2ea88c516d26e3c7b48/e/6a66a8d9a51cbd54e23671f5/media.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-veil-7494973/episodes/e43-the-masterton-massacre
Duration seconds: 2570

## Resource

On a winter Friday night in 1992, Raymond Ratima let himself into his in-laws' house on Judds Road, Masterton, with a key he had taken when he was told to leave. He waited forty-five minutes. Then he killed seven members of his own family — including his three small sons and a woman a month from giving birth — before lying in wait in the dark for the rest of them to come home. He pleaded guilty. He has never been released. And across thirty-four years, fourteen parole boards, a High Court judgment and the country's best forensic psychiatry, nobody has been able to answer the only question that matters: why. Sources used: Court and official records Ratima v The New Zealand Parole Board [2024] NZHC 613 (Preston J, 20 March 2024) — https://thelawassociation.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Ratima-v-Parole-Board.pdf New Zealand Parole Board, decision of 12 March 2024 — https://www.paroleboard.govt.nz/decisions/decisions_2024/raymond_wahia_ratima_12032024 Parole Act 2002 — https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0010/latest/DLM137632.html Sentencing Act 2002, s 103 — https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0009/latest/DLM136499.html Contemporaneous reporting "Man charged over massacre of seven," UPI, 26 June 1992 — https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/06/26/Man-charged-over-massacre-of-seven/7593709531200/ History and reference "Masterton massacre, 1992," NZHistory, Manatū Taonga — https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/masterton-massacre "Mass homicides since 1990," Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand — https://teara.govt.nz/en/violent-crime/page-6 Later reporting Nikki Macdonald, "Faces of Innocents: The Ratima massacre — remembering the children of Judds Rd," Stuff, 23 July 2016 — https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/faces-of-innocents/81305979/faces-of-innocents-the-r…

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