Her cry came almost at the same time as the fatal blow by her niece, Selassie-I Iraia, Justice Graham Lang said at sentencing in the High Court at Hamilton on Tuesday. “You plainly knew Ms Iraia was carrying a knife and you intentionally encouraged her to use it to stab Mr Bennett. That is so regardless of whether she may already have been committed to that act before you called out.” The woman who delivered the fatal blow, 21-year-old Iraia, is serving a jail sentence of two years and eight months for manslaughter. Anderson-Humphrey and Bennett had been together about five years – including about two when he was in prison – and had a daughter together, the court heard.
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Betty-Jo Anderson Humphrey, 23, is accused of yelling “stab him” to her niece as her former partner was coming down a driveway in Lilac St, Melville, in December 2019.
Moments before Johnny Junior Bennett was fatally stabbed in the chest, the woman he’d recently broken up with by text yelled down the driveway. Betty-Jo Anderson-Humphrey, 23, says she called “grab him”, but the Crown argues it was “stab him”. Moments later, Bennett was fatally wounded in a Hamilton driveway by Anderson-Humphrey’s niece, Selassie-I Iraia, 20 – so what Anderson-Humphrey said will be crucial. Iraia has been convicted of manslaughter over Bennett’s December 2019 death, but if Anderson-Humphrey urged her niece on, she can also be found guilty.