A 25-year-old woman is in custody after the death of a 67-year-old man in a "tragic" family dispute in Wellington, police say.
Four people were also injured after the stabbing at a property on Broderick Rd, in the northern suburb of Johnsonville, about 8.30pm yesterday.
The chaos spilled over into a neighbouring property last night, where another woman was stabbed, Detective Senior Sergeant John Van Der Heuevel said today.
The man died shortly after police arrived in the neighbourhood.
Two people remain in a stable condition in hospital, including a boy aged 9 and a 45-year-old woman, who is a neighbour.
Two other women aged 42 and 64 were injured, but have been discharged from hospital and are receiving appropriate support, police said.
"Four of the victims, including the dead man, are family members and are known to the woman in custody," Mr Van Der Heuevel said.
A team of 42 police staff as well as scientists were at the scene today as part of an investigation codenamed Operation Neptune. A knife has been recovered from the scene.
The woman has not yet been charged and was being kept in a separate hospital. However, "serious charges" were likely, he said.
A woman from the Broderick Rd house called police about 8.30pm last night. With help from a police dog, the alleged assailant was located a short distance from the home. No-one else is being sought in connection with the incident.
Mr Van Der Heuevel said police were still keen to hear from people who were in the neighbourhood yesterday evening.
"This is a very tragic incident and our thoughts are with family and all those others involved," Mr Van Der Heuevel added.
Mr Van Der Heuvel expected a post-mortem to be conducted tomorrow.
Local MP Peter Dunne said he was aware of the incident and was "shocked".
"I don't have the full story or anything like the full story. All I know is one person is dead and a number are injured and I'm obviously shocked, it's not good news."
I knew it was serious - witness
Broderick Rd resident Vivienne Whitford said she saw a lot of ambulances and police cars outside her house and up the road. She also saw officers running to a house on the corner.
"I heard a siren coming up the road and next thing there were heaps of them outside the house here and going further up the road."
Resident Cody Bridge and his friend Vinny Rattan were shocked to see multiple police cars head up Broderick Rd.
"I knew all of sudden it was something serious," Mr Rattan said.
"It's usually a quiet neighbourhood. You don't expect something like this to go down."
Mr Bridge said there were no signs of tension in the street before the homicide happened.
Another local resident, Daniel Quarterman, said a house only a few metres away was where singer Matthew John Hall was murdered in 2011.
"At the time when that happened the police said it would be extremely unlikely for another murder at a neighbour's house. It's happened again."
He said the leafy street was the scene of frequent petty crime, mostly cars being interfered with.
- NZ Herald and NZME.News Service
