Robson lived in the sleepout at the back of a large South Auckland property while the man, Anthony Hepi, lived in the main house at the front with his whānau.
Hepi told the court that on the morning of May 6, 2025, he was doing the washing when he heard somebody arguing in the backyard.
He thought it was Robson, because he recognised his voice, and guessed he was bickering with Hepi’s brother.
Moments later, Hepi said Robson came running around the corner yelling and with blood “p****ing out of his neck”.
“He just said, ‘ah, some b**** stabbed me’,” Hepi recalled.
Hepi sat the man down on his front step, fetched a towel to stop the blood and called 111.
At some point, a teen came out to help stop the bleeding and Hepi ran into the sleepout to check if anyone was still there.
On his way back to the main house, he said he saw a hooded figure he didn’t recognise at the gate, but said he was too distracted by saving Robson to engage.
Crown prosecutor Aysser Al-Janabi reminded Hepi of his police statement, where the man said he told the figure to “f*** off”.
Hepi accepted that was true and said the figure was most likely female as he remembered them having long hair.
Defence lawyer Susan Giles asked Hepi about the makeshift gym he had in his backyard.
“They look like some pretty heavy weights … wouldn’t you agree?” she asked.
You have to be pretty strong to lift those weights, Giles continued, and Hepi agreed.
She asked if he thought Robson was “pretty strong”, to which Hepi said, “to a degree” but he had only seen him use the gym area once, for a short period.
The 111 call
The court was played the 111 call where Hepi could be heard repeatedly, and with increased urgency, asking for an ambulance to “hurry”.
Robson could be heard speaking and moaning in the background.
“I don’t know where she is, she’s f***ing gone,” Hepi said to the operator of the woman who stabbed Robson.
When the ambulance arrived about eight minutes into the call, Hepi could be heard expressing his frustration when they seemed to pass by the address.
The operator assured him they were probably doing a U-turn.
Hepi was on home detention and couldn’t leave the property but could be heard in the call yelling out to the ambulance staff.
“Hurry up ya f***in’ egg,” he could be heard shouting.
The operator warned the man to calm down because the first responders might stay away if they felt threatened.
“We’re kind of experiencing something right now, miss,” the teen told the operator over the phone. “You gotta understand that.”
Hepi could then be heard saying: “Bro, these clowns don’t even give a f*** about him”.
When the operator insisted that they did, Hepi responded: “Well they aren’t f***ing rushing anyway … they’re taking their f***ing time”.
Woman seen ‘looking lost’
The teenager, who was at the property that day, took the stand with an older support person seated next to him.
He said he remembered hearing someone arguing outside and words to the effect of “you f***in’ stabbed me, b****”.
Crown prosecutor Samuel Cox then referred the teen to his police statement, taken on the day of the stabbing, which said he had also heard a female voice respond.
“Now I remember,” he replied.
He said he had heard a woman say something like “yeah, you f***ing c***”.
He said he saw a woman standing just outside the gate on the street.
“[She was] facing outside … she was just staring … she looked like a lost soul,” he said.
“Not yelling, standing there looking quiet as. Looking lost really.”
He recalled the woman was wearing a blanket around her waist and her hair was dirty.
Giles asked him if he remembered the defendant or knew that she had been staying in the sleepout with Robson, to which he replied “dunno”.
Giles suggested he was mistaken about hearing a woman’s voice arguing in the morning or saying anything about a “dumb c***”.
“That’s a lie ’cause I did hear that,” the teen said. “You weren’t there that day, I was.”
Loud yelling
The third witness was Amanda Petersen, a member of the public who lived in the neighbourhood.
She said on the morning of Robson’s death she was driving by his Mahia Rd, Manurewa, address about 10am when a woman on the street caught her attention.
The woman was yelling loudly, wearing what appeared to be a rug tied around her waist with a white string, and socks with no shoes, Petersen said.
She observed the woman walk around the corner and continue to yell over the fence, Petersen said.
She later gave that account to police, the court heard.
The trial continues.
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She’s currently based in Auckland covering justice-related stories.