On 13 November 1990, an unemployed man in his 30s, David Gray, is living with his parents in a small holiday home in Aramoana. He bikes into town and gets into a heated dispute with bank staff over a minor issue. After this tense encounter, he returns home, where a cache of firearms sits ready.
As afternoon light fades, Gray notices children from a nearby house wandering into his yard and begins verbally abusing them, sparking a fierce confrontation with their father, Garry Holden. Gray retreats inside, but soon re-emerges armed with a rifle and fires, killing Holden. The murder is witnessed by Holden’s two young daughters, Chiquita and Jasmine, and by Julie-Anne’s adopted daughter Rewa, who flee into Holden’s house to hide. Gray follows, quickly locating the frightened children.
Chiquita, wounded, escapes in a desperate bid for help with Jasmine and Rewa while Julie-Anne and the others race toward Holden’s house in a bid to rescue the remaining girls. They reach the scene to find Holden’s home already aflame, and in fear for their own safety, Julie-Anne drives away as Gray fires on her vehicle.
Nearby residents hear the gunfire and see smoke but do not yet grasp the full scale of the danger. Gray moves through a nearby house and fatally shoots two male occupants. Eva Dickson, an elderly widow who had recently undergone hip surgery, steps outside with her walking frame to investigate, and is joined by neighbor Chris Cole. An unseen Gray opens fire, striking Cole and narrowly missing Dickson. Dickson collapses, crawls back inside to call the police, and then returns to Cole, who remains conscious but badly wounded; Cole would later die from his injuries. A six-person utility—three children among them—drives up from the beach, stopping near the burning house. Gray exits and opens fire on the vehicle. The ensuing shootings are not shown in detail, leaving only the sounds of gunfire and the horror on nearby faces.
The first police responders—Sgt Stewart Guthrie, Constable Nick Harvey, and Detective Paul Knox—arrive at the scenes of the violence and immediately try to surround Gray’s house. Gray surprises Guthrie from behind and shoots him dead. Harvey, rifle in hand, briefly has Gray in his sights but hesitates and misses the opportunity. Knox reaches the utility, discovers that the only survivor is 3-year-old Stacey Percy, who is wounded but conscious. He and Harvey enter Gray’s house, find it empty, and drive to a police cordon while nursing Stacey and carrying the bodies of the other children from the vehicle to await medical help. Harvey is visibly shaken and physically ill by the enormity of the scene.
Eva Dickson remains inside her home, speaking to police on the phone and keeping watch over the unfolding crisis. Her dog returns, its fur stained with the blood from her son James, whose death occurred off-screen. Police seal off the town and residents spend a tense night indoors, while the gunman remains at large. Gray ends up spending the night in an abandoned crib, having found shelter there.
The following day, the town remains under siege as police flood in. Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) officers locate the crib and surround Gray’s house. After a brief exchange of gunfire, tear gas is deployed into the residence. Gray bursts out, shouting obscenities and firing from the hip. The AOS officers return fire, wounding him, and he collapses. They restrain him as he dies from his wounds, surrounded by the officers who finally end the immediate threat.
A postscript montage closes the account: the AOS officers pay respects to Eva Dickson as she is escorted from her home; Chiquita Holden and Stacey Percy recover in hospital; Gray’s house is deliberately torched days after the massacre; and a list of the 13 people who died on that day is shown.
