The sad story of Helena Pauleen Wakefield's death while living in her car
And what her brother, Larry Wakefield, had to do with it
This story has been quite prominent in the media here over the last 6 days, and in the last 24 hours we’ve found out who the woman was. As this Stuff story says “Police have named the 72-year-old woman who died while living in her car on an Auckland street.
Helena Pauleen Wakefield was found dead in her car on July 7 in Remuera during an Auckland City Mission welfare check.”
Auckland Council has accepted responsibility for the mistake of not following through on the reports from local residents, some of whom may have known her, and for not investigating reports of the woman further. Unfortunately this is not at all surprising as in Auckland there are a lot of people sleeping in their cars in 2022 so one more is hardly going to jumpstart the council into action even if it is in the very leafy suburb of Remuera, probably New Zealand’s most affluent suburb.
There’s a bit more to this story though, even more than the details that are slowly leaking out about a family fight in the courts. As for example in this RNZ story. In that story we find out that Helena had been living with, and looking after her mother for about 8 years up until her mother’s death in May 2019. Helena continued to live at the address (also in Remuera) after this date which obviously caused problems for her brother, Larry Wakefield, a geologist who had enjoyed a successful career of working for Shell around the world before retiring to the salubrious beachside surrounds of Mt Martha (an upper middle class suburb) on the Mornington Peninsula near (actually it’s more or less a suburb of) Melbourne. In fact even after retiring he continued to provide, most likely well paid for, advice to various governments and corporates around Australia on moving to ‘sustainable energy’ mostly.
But obviously the two siblings, both executors of their mother’s will, could not agree on how to move forward. Selling the house for 1.2 million NZD is a nice earner for someone who’s retired in Mt Martha, you can do up your kitchen, maybe add a gazebo out back or if you have kids try and get them into their own property or help them out with their business. But for someone who is 72 in the Auckland housing market with an average price around 1.2m (in fact Remuera is more likely 2m or more) then its probably a very large stressor instead. We’ll ignore the possibility that the property was worth more than 1.2m. It probably was by a 100k or 200k.
What the papers don’t really tell you is that Larry applied to the courts in early 2021 to get sole executor status on his Mother’s will. And he got it too. The next stage in this legal ‘fight’ (his sister did not seem to have the wherewithal to defend) was to give his sister the statutory minimum notice of 3 months to vacate. He offered to put her up elsewhere at $600 a week but she had to pay this back out of her share of the will. This is his side of the story too, not hers. Remember that he has sole executor status of his mother’s will. It’s not an equal relationship. So before the 3 months notice is up Larry has filed another case to have his sister evicted from the house. Because yes it would seem that the 3 months notice was from July 2020 rather than from the February outcome of the court case (Wakefield v Wakefield [2021] NZHC 203 (17 February 2021). So then on the 19 May 2021 the plaintiff (Larry) filed a statement of claim against his sister.
Reading this Wakefield v Wakefield [2021] NZHC 1664 (6 July 2021) case that resulted gives me the impression that Larry had no intention of sharing the proceeds of the sale of his mother’s house.. As he being the sole executor of their mother’s will it was not possible for Helena to request the bank to provide her with the statements that Larry was placing as a condition of her receiving her part of the inheritance. And it seemed that she was already living in her car by this stage, maybe isolated from friends as well. On the other hand Larry could have asked the bank to pass these statements on to him without Helena’s interaction.
So his bleats of trying to find his sister via a private investigator don’t ring true to my ears. If only there was a chance, and the willingness, to charge him with manslaughter.
The sad story of Helena Pauleen Wakefield's death while living in her car
I've seen some pretty low behaviour in my siblings when my Mum passed. I hope for them that they can relive their crimes when they lie old and helpless before they die. Seems fair.
Another self-made success story thanks to the the Auckland property ladder.
How the people of this country got the bright idea to turn residential houses into retirement piggy-banks is beyond me, but we're all paying for that particular lack of foresight.