The husband of murder victim Blessie Gotingco plans to crowdsource funds for a lawsuit against the corrections department.
An inquiry has found Tony Robertson, the convicted sex offender who raped and killed Ms Gontingco while under Corrections supervision, was the only person to blame for her death.
But Antonio Gotingco has told The Nation there's blood on other hands too.
In an open letter addressed to his fellow New Zealanders, Mr Gotingco's anger is raw and focused directly at the Corrections department.
"Its decision to put a sadistic, unreformed criminal in our neighbourhood sealed the fate of our much loved Blessie. It is like putting a snake in the hen house.
"This pure and unadulterated evil was never properly monitored to stop him committing this very heinous crime."
So today, on his wife's birthday, Mr Gotingco's launching a Givealittle page to fund legal action against the department.
"Even if you donate just $1 it will go a long, long way for us and in the end we will show the Government the power of the people," Mr Gotingco says.
"We will tell them, 'Never again'."
Robertson had been out of jail less than six months when he mowed Ms Gotingco down with his car, raped, stabbed and killed her -- all the while, under Corrections' watch.
An inquiry found the department's management of Robertson in the community exceeded mandatory standards, and nothing it did gave him the opportunity to kill.
"If they think they really did the right thing, why is my wife dead?" Mr Gotingco says. "That is the question."
Robertson was GPS-monitored and subject to curfew but in the Birkdale neighbourhood, half a kilometre from a school, no-one was told there was a high-risk offender in their midst.
For Mr Gotingco, knowing exactly how his wife died has galvanised his resolve.
"The pain we are experiencing now is nothing compared to the pain my wife was experiencing in the manner of how she died ... so I am willing to take it," Mr Gotingco says.
"I just want to fight back. I am in fighting mode."
It's a fight he hopes many New Zealanders will join him with.
Newshub.
