Police have apologised to the mother of a woman who died after a supposed fall down a flight of stairs for their handling of the case.
Late on May 4 2022, Rachel Molloy was found at the bottom of the 10 concrete stairs that led up to her central Auckland flat.
Despite knowing the 30-year-old was both the alleged victim and central witness in an upcoming sexual assault trial, the fall - and her death - were treated as an accident.
Earlier this week, more than four years after Rachel's death, her mother Mandy received a personal apology from Auckland police.
Watch John Campbell's investigation of Rachel Molloy's mysterious death: The Woman at the Bottom of the Stairs on TVNZ+
The fall and the police response
Following the fall at her flat, Rachel's skull was smashed. She was dying.
Police attended the scene. Information flagged in the police system shows that at some stage on that night, police knew Rachel was both the alleged victim and central witness in a sexual assault trial.
The alleged crime had taken place in her previous home, while she was unconscious and almost everything she owned was being stolen.
Her death was immediately treated as an accident - the result of a drunken fall.
Police did not take fingerprints and did not seek CCTV footage from adjacent properties to definitively establish what happened.
Few neighbours - including the one who found the dying woman - were formally interviewed for the investigation.
A TVNZ report showed one of the police officers dispatched to the scene emailed a colleague at the end of their shift: "Just letting you know we attended an incident tonight, where Rachel Molloy appears to have been drunk and fallen down the stairs to her unit. She has received critical injuries and will not survive.
"The doctors are keeping her on life support until her family arrive from Levin.
"I see she is a victim of yours, so just giving you a heads-up."
A mother takes action
Rachel's mother, Mandy, was not satisfied with the police investigation.
She did not believe police had considered her daughter's sudden and violent death could be connected to what police had called a "home invasion" two years earlier.
"She was drugged and sexually assaulted, and everything she owned was stolen," Mandy told John Campbell for his TVNZ series The Woman at the Bottom of the Stairs.
Security camera footage from 2020 shows Rachel, who lived in a high-rise central Auckland apartment building at the time, had been approached by a woman claiming to be in distress and asking for help. Rachel invited the woman in. Rachel ended up unconscious, and the woman invited four more people into her apartment.
Four out of the five people left, having taken her property from her apartment. The sole male offender stayed behind with the unconscious Rachel, alone.
After the incident, Rachel emailed police and asked if anyone was going to come and fingerprint her apartment.
Police responded: "If you remember who it was that came into your house please advise police and we will reopen the case."
Eventually, police apologised for what they called "below standard service".
The investigation that followed saw four out of the five people plead guilty to various burglary charges. The first woman in the incident had been set to go on trial in June 2022 on sexual assault charges. A month before the trial, Rachel died. The trial never happened.
Mandy asked authorities to prove they had done enough to ensure Rachel's death was not something more sinister than a drunken fall.
It took more than three years for police to speak to the offenders involved in the home invasion.
Mandy continued to ask for definitive proof. It never came.
In 2025, a complaint was filed with the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA).
Now, Mandy has received a personal apology for how it was handled.
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