At her parents' house at least, it's as if Rachal Cleaver has been erased from history. A hand-written sign on the door of her old bedroom says simply: "spare room".

"We burnt everything of Rachal's, from the smallest to the greatest," says her father, Stephen Cleaver, a self-styled prophet who claims to hear the word of God.

"We do not discard her, but we have to walk the path of the Lord. If we are moping over the dead, we are going backwards, we have to look ahead."

Carla and Stephen Cleaver, who believe their daughter Rachal was murdered.

There's a sign on the gate of the ramshackle farm property Cleaver and his wife, Carla, rent near Kaiwaka that says "Get your own toilet".

They say that Christ will soon return in a blaze of fire and God's angels will kill everyone who hasn't made it to their place - but you have to take care of your own body waste.

"The war will start right here," Stephen Cleaver says.

The couple says the Government is spying on them and that Prime Minister John Key himself buzzed their house in a helicopter.

And they say it was Key and American president Barack Obama who were behind Rachal's death.

A sign on the gate of the property where Stephen and Carla Cleaver live near Kaiwaka, refers to the end of times. PHOTO: TONY WALL

Rachal, 20, died in Whangarei Hospital on June 10 after suffering a severe asthma attack at home. She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. Her baby was delivered by caesarean section while she was in a coma, but he died in Starship the following day. He was named Robert.

Stephen and Carla Cleaver had contacted lawyers to stop the hospital withdrawing life support, to no avail. Auckland barrister Simon Reeves says he rang the hospital but was told they couldn't find any record of him as a practising lawyer. Reeves says life support was stopped with "unseemly haste".

Northland District Health Board says hospital staff fought hard to save Rachal but she'd suffered irreversible brain damage. The board couldn't comment on Reeves' allegation because the coroner is investigating.

A Fairfax investigation has found a troubling family background. Police say there is an "unrelated matter that police are investigating regarding the Cleaver family". They refused to give further details.

Rachal was in the care of the Dingwall Trust, a care and protection facility in Papatoetoe, South Auckland, from nine until she turned 17.

The trust's director, Tracie Shipton, says staff had serious concerns about what would happen to Rachal if she returned home. It was also feared she wouldn't get the medical treatment she needed for her asthma and eczema.

Shipton says Rachal's death was "highly preventable. Asthma is a manageable disease."

The asthma attack

Stephen Cleaver says Rachal was preparing for a home birth because the family didn't want "the men-stealers" [CYF staff] taking the baby.

He also has concerns, he says, about hospitals taking blood from babies. "They steal their blood all the time, it"s against the principles of God that we believe in."

He says he doesn't know who got Rachal pregnant.

"You need to talk to Rachal, and you can't do that because she's not here. Who knows? She's an adult, I can't get involved with her life and what she does ... in her secret hours. What God says, he says."

Carla Cleaver says: "I agree, I don't go running around after her."

On the day of her asthma attack, Cleaver says, Rachal was outside filming aircraft that were flying low over the house.

He claims they were Government planes, and they dropped poison.

"My nose started to run, and within a short time we hear this distress call and Rachal cries out for her mum. Immediately after that, she had a severe asthma attack."

Cleaver says they'd coped with her asthma attacks in the past, and on one occasion he'd taken her to hospital.

Rachal managed to get inside and get her portable nebuliser running, Cleaver says, but started to change colour.

At that point, they called 111, and Cleaver says he performed CPR and mouth-to-mouth until an ambulance arrived. Paramedics stabilised her, and she had a faint pulse by the time she was airlifted to Whangarei, he says. Cleaver rode with her in the helicopter.

He claims hospital staff initially said "we can save her" but then said there was no hope.

Rachal Cleaver. PHOTO: SUPPLIED

"I said 'you get in there and make sure you save he'. Another quack comes out, he says 'we're struggling to save her, we're gonna have to cut the baby out'."

He says every three hours Rachal was being "stabbed" with what he was told were steroids. He believes otherwise.

"I think they were giving her a paralysing injection to kill her. I voiced many times that she was murdered."

Eventually the family was told that the tube that was assisting Rachal to breathe would be removed at 9pm. The parents say they objected.

"I said 'she is alive, her spirit is still in her'," Cleaver says.

He says he demanded to see the baby and was escorted to ICU by security guards. Robert also had a breathing tube, according to Cleaver.

"I was talking to the Lord and the Lord said the spirit was still in him. I had a look at his eyes and it was the exact same feature in his eyes as Rachal's. Whatever they'd done to Rachal, they'd done to the boy."

The baby was transferred to Starship, where he later died. "Obviously they wanted to get him away from me, so I couldn't have control," Cleaver claimed.

Care in hospital

Mike Roberts, chief medical officer for the Northland District Health Board, says: "From the moment Rachal arrived everybody involved in her care did everything they could to support her and give her every chance of surviving. There was absolutely no question that anybody did anything at any stage that would shorten her life deliberately."

Rachal had suffered a cardiac arrest, Roberts says, and lack of oxygen to her brain caused severe, irreversible damage.

After the necessary tests, it was concluded there was no hope. "When it became clear she couldn't survive, the focus was on making sure she was allowed a dignified death."

That meant removing the tube that was assisting her breathing, and not attempting to resuscitate her, he says.

The injections Rachal were given were to reduce swelling on her brain and to make her comfortable, Roberts says.

"All of the staff involved with her care were very deeply effected by the tragedy unfolding in front of them."

"For a young person to lose their life as a result of an asthma attack is obviously very sad. To know that an unborn baby had been affected as well made it very unpleasant for all."

The baby died because oxygen wasn't getting to Rachal's womb during the cardiac arrest, he says.

Roberts says he can't comment on the legal attempts to stop the breathing tube being removed, as the coroner will have to consider that.

Final moments

When the tube was removed from Rachal's mouth, she died quickly. Her parents were allowed a few minutes alone with her.

"Instantly they pulled the pipe out, no breathing," Cleaver says. Her skin changed colour, it went white and crept down her face."

He says he tried breathing into her nose, but the air came back out, along with an extreme taste, which he believes was poison.

"I couldn't move my shoulders, neck, head and arms. I was screaming out to the Lord."

The couple objected to an autopsy, Cleaver says. "It's against our beliefs, I heard they steal body parts."

An autopsy was carried out, and the bodies of Rachal and her baby were released to the Dingwall Trust, where a funeral service was held on Wednesday. The parents didn't attend.

Shipton says it was a beautiful service. Staff were devastated by Rachal's death.

"She was a beautiful young girl with lots of potential. What I'm most stressed about is it was a highly preventable death of a pretty awesome kid."

Rachal was returned to a situation where her safety could never be guaranteed, Shipton says.

When Rachal turned 17, she immediately returned to her parents in Northland. There was nothing Dingwall could do, even though they believed she was not mature enough to make a sensible decision.

No-one saw her after she left, and Shipton doesn't think she went out socially. She was "innocent", she says, and child-like.

Staff gave Rachal a pen with their business cards.

Shipton has wider concerns about the law.

The trust has been campaigning for a change to extend custodial responsibility and ongoing care provision for vulnerable young people into their 20s. An expert government panel is considering the changes and Shipton says it should be a priority.

"Some young people are leaving care to return to highly dysfunctional families that are just as unsafe as they were when the children were removed from their parents care, the only difference is the child's age."

A different girl

People who saw Rachal before her death say she was completely different to the vibrant, happy girl she'd been at Dingwall. She quoted scripture at people and questioned their morality.

Facebook gives a clue to her mindset. She talks about brussels sprouts being "evil and demonic" and writes "the reason why I stand in the sun every day is because I don't want you to see how many tears I shear".

All that's left on her bedroom wall is a small scrap of paper with some writing - something about helicopters flying low over her house last December. By the end, she well and truly shared her parents' paranoia.

Did you know Rachal Cleaver? Email tony.wall@fairfaxmedia.co.nz