A killer living in Upper Hutt after his release from psychiatric care is not considered a threat to the community, the Ministry of Health says.
Stephen Anderson, 37, shot six people at his family's lodge at Raurimu in the central North Island on February 8, 1997.
Anderson was now living in Upper Hutt, the Sunday News reported today.
The paranoid schizophrenic was found not guilty of the murders by reason of insanity and locked up in full-time psychiatric care.
Anderson had made his first short-term visit into the community a long time ago, the ministry's national director of health David Chaplow said.
"He's been making these moves for some years now in a very careful and deliberate manner," Dr Chaplow told TV3 News.
"He would not be put into the community unless he was safe."
Dr Chaplow said Anderson's treatment was continuing, and getting him back into the community under strict release conditions would help rehabilitate him.
At the time of the killings, Anderson was under the care of Capital and Coast's community mental health team in Wellington. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic two years prior to the shootings .
Anderson shot dead his 60-year-old father Neville, Anthony McCarty, 63, Stephen Hanson, 38, John Matthews, 28, Andrea Brander, 52, and Hendrick (Henk) Van de Wetering, 51.
He also wounded four others, including Isabel McCarty.
"It is another example of New Zealand not punishing people who do something wrong," Ms McCarty said.
Eve Spencer, who was shot in the elbow by Anderson, said she bore him no ill will.
"There really is nothing to say. It is all in the past now. We have moved on."
Anderson's mother Helen told the paper her son was now "getting on with his life" and "is not newsworthy".
