Normally a town you drive through on the way to somewhere else, the rural community of Sanson was thrust into the spotlight this week after a devastating fire which claimed the lives of three children, allegedly lit by their father. The Post’s Hanna McCallum reports.
Just before 5pm every day, five ewes, some lambs and some chickens in a Sanson paddock wander over to the fence, knowing it’s time for a feed.
For the last few days, instead of a family of five, it’s been police officers feeding them.
“The kids must’ve fed them every day – hand-reared them,” Palmerston North-based Detective Sergeant Grayson Joines tells The Post, while looking toward bunches of flowers that are starting to wilt at the entrance to this rural property’s driveway.
With heavy rain forecast, the air is hot, sticky and humid. Behind Joines, officers in white suits are carrying out a forensic examination. Except for the police hat and lanyard, Joines looks casual by comparison, wearing a white polo shirt, tucked into khaki-coloured trousers.
It wouldn’t be immediately obvious he is in charge – but it’s him greeting arriving council staff, telling them he’ll be over in a minute. They’re here for a safety inspection.
In feeding these animals, watering these flowers, Joines is taking care of this tragic scene in more ways than expected.
He is hoping the rain holds off because his staff need more time to sift through the little that is left of what was a family home just days earlier – before anyone can return to collect any remaining valuables. What’s left of the house will eventually be demolished.
Normally a town you drive through on the way to somewhere else, the rural community of Sanson was thrust into the spotlight this week.
Barry, a local business owner who grew up here, recalls a time when everyone knew everyone. “Now you don’t know who the f…’s around.”
But he knew someone who worked with the man at the centre of all this, who was reportedly, at one time, “good as gold”.
Now, seeing the photos of the three children who lost their lives this week, Barry says: “They’re just three Kiwi kids.
“It’s just a disaster, what a f… wit.”
The afternoon it all unfolded
At 2.20pm last Saturday the first shriek of a nightmare was heard.
Fire crews were called to something seemingly benign: a structure fire.
They arrived at a rural family home on Wellington Rd, nestled down a long, narrow driveway, enclosed by a border of trees which shield it from the busy State Highway 1.
On arrival, the horror of what had unfolded in the house was not immediately apparent to the crew. While the house was engulfed in flames, the police were called because, seeing the scale of the blaze, fire crew needed help controlling traffic around the property.
By pure coincidence, a passing police patrol stopped to assist when they saw the fire. There were Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) trained staff in the vehicle – although a police spokesperson later clarified AOS were never specifically needed or requested.
But it wouldn’t take long before firefighters became aware of “other factors at play”, as Fire and Emergency group manager Gary Ward, who responded on the day, later put it. And soon it was clear senior police, even those there by chance, were very much required at the property.
Because, after the almost five hours it took for the fire to be fully extinguished – aerial images show nothing except the base of the house left in its wake – the reality was that what initially appeared to be a terrible tragedy was more ominous than that.
The deaths of young August, 7, Hugo, 5 and 1-year-old Goldie Field are being investigated as murders committed by their father Dean Field, whose own death is being investigated as a suspected suicide.
A week later, in the small rural village in Manawatū, a community is left reeling.
‘It’s hard to comprehend’
Only two days before the fire, Dean Field had been coaching Manawatū District mayor Michael Ford’s two grandchildren at touch rugby. Ford’s mokopuna were a similar age to, and friends with, August and Hugo.
Field was handing out player of the day, “smiling, happy”, Ford says.
“It’s just unbelievable, it’s hard to understand, hard to comprehend.”
He did not know Field well but had met the children’s mother, Chelsey Field, on the sidelines of a sports game.
“I think it’s going to take time to sink in,” he said about his grandchildren. “But the whole school is affected by it.”
He described a week that got worse as it went on. Ford was watching a play at Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North when he got a call from police on Saturday evening about the fire and “tragic loss of life”.
It was only two days later that people began to realise who the people were, and what had happened began rippling throughout the community.
“A lot of people are affected, they know these people, and they’re friends of these people … And then the news that police haven’t ruled out a homicide, it just makes the whole thing even more horrific.”
‘A good old fashioned community’
Located about a two-hour drive north of Wellington, Sanson is a pit stop town built around the intersection between SH1 and SH3. Utes and big trucks frequent the gas stations, men in shorts and gumboots walk around looking for a bite to eat.
Aircraft flying overhead are reminders of the nearby Royal New Zealand Air Force Base at Ohakea. Sanson, population about 670, is home to many air force personnel.
As well as the gas stations, a bright mini supermarket, a Bottle-O and an electrical service, antique stores and other shops selling knick-knacks, as well as a handful of coffee shops and homes dotted in between, make up the 1 kilometre stretch on either side of the state highway.
Evidence of the kind of people in its community can be found in those who had dropped crackers and other food to police staff working at the razed property, says Detective Sergeant Joines.
Sadly, this town is no stranger to tragedy: a number of business owners mention a suspected suicide by a young girl in the public toilets less than a week prior to the fire, adding to the heavy atmosphere.
Some locals also mention the only recent comparative tragedy – the Lundy murders in nearby Palmerston North, 25 years ago. Mark Lundy was convicted of bludgeoning to death his wife and 7-year-old daughter, although he has always protested his innocence.
Many describe the Sanson community as “tight knit”, where everybody knows each other. But many of those who know the Fields personally, visibly grief-stricken, decline to comment.
It’s a “good old fashioned NZ community”, one business owner who asked not to be named, said. “Everyone cares about everybody.”
She, like others, had come to Sanson to be closer to family in recent years. Although she did not know the Fields, she had grandkids the same age as the children. The incident was “devastating”, she said through streams of tears.
“She’s in a place no one should ever be,” she says of mother Chelsey Field. “We really need to take care of her – [make sure] she’s protected.”
‘My children did not deserve this’
When The Post visited the Wellington Rd property on Wednesday, aside from four unmarked police cars parked on the side of the road, there were few signs of anything untoward.
Neighbouring cows milled around in the heat as thick clouds hung heavy, threatening to unleash rain. The air was still and quiet, except for lorry trucks frequently thundering by.
A corner of the burnt remains of the house were visible from the entrance of the driveway, now carpeted with flowers from locals. A police truck parked down the driveway, a blue tent erected in the background, and police staff in suits occasionally coming in and out of sight, are a reminder of what happened here.
On Friday, Chelsey Field gave her first statement since her childen’s suspected murders, saying she was “broken and devastated”. Field had been a stay-at-home mother since 2020. Field and Dean Field were married and living together.
“My babies were my absolute world …. My children did not deserve this,” she said, before paying a lengthy and individual tribute to each of the children she had lost.
Not only had she lost her children, but the family’s dog, Marlo, too, and the ashes of her stillborn daughter, which were on the property.
August, who she described as a “happy, kind and outgoing boy”, would have turned 8 on Thursday and was looking forward to his birthday party at Timezone with five of his best friends.
He loved sports, especially football, and Field had planned to take him to a Phoenix game soon.
August loved his siblings and would get his baby sister out of bed in the morning, making her bottles and feeding her.
He was “glued at the hip” with his younger brother Hugo, who Field described as a “mama’s boy” who was “kind, thoughtful and considerate”.
He loved dinosaurs and Hot Wheels and had just started school at the beginning of term 2.
“He had begun to read so confidently, he was learning to count so proudly and he loved writing stories.”
He had just won an award for care and attention on his first pet day at school, taking his lamb Nigel.
“He loved his little sister Goldie too and was such a doting big brother.”
Field said Goldie had started pulling herself up to stand and loved going to music group every Tuesday.
She would follow her brothers around, getting into their toys and loved going on the school drop off and pick ups each day.
“Her brothers were the best things in the world to her.”
Goldie was “my special little girl I had waited so long for”.
“I am so glad I never spent a day or night away from her in her short life.”
Mayor Ford is encouraged by the way the Sanson, Manawatū and wider New Zealand community has rallied around the whānau.
A fundraising page had raised more than $360,000 as of Friday.
Council staff had put out donation boxes and people had been in touch with Ford to find out how they could get a card or financial support to the whānau.
“I think people have just considered this to be the worst nightmare, and they’re so concerned about the mum, the family, wanting to do something.”
He was also conscious of the frontline staff who witnessed the fire and could be “hurting badly”.
“As a community, we say thank you to them … The rest of us need to just wait and let the police do their job and I guess we’ll get the explanation in due course.”
Many locals pointed to Viv’s Kitchen, on the corner of the village, as the place where people knew everyone. Many had grown up working at the cafe, designed after an American diner, famous for its cream horns.
Co-owner Viv Withers, still working and making coffees, taking photos with customers, declined to comment, saying with tears in her eyes that she knew the family.
But she had started making a fairy garden in the outdoor area, filled with knick-knacks, behind a tree house she thought people should know about.
The three young children came to mind as she was decorating the tree stump with butterflies, gnomes and little mushroom homes. She ended up finishing it two days ago, dedicating it to them.
A plaque would be made in memory of the children.
SOURCE: https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360895805/inside-small-rural-town-rocked-crime-beyond-belief
