The murder-accused admits he stabbed Kaea, but the defence has told the jury it should find him guilty of manslaughter, not murder.
The Crown says the murder-accused – who has Mongrel Mob tattoos across his face – was part of a group who attacked Kaea because of a minor incident at a party a few weeks earlier, and because of the mistaken belief he was associated with Black Power.
The accused has significant intellectual impairments and the defence says he wouldn’t have known his reckless actions could have caused a death.
Witness says murder-accused ran towards fight
The witness, whose name is also suppressed, said she was drinking vodka pre-mix RTDs with a friend at a house in the Hastings suburb of Flaxmere when the murder-accused messaged on Instagram and asked if she wanted to be picked up.
She thought they would head up Te Mata Peak, near Havelock North, but they instead headed to Napier, where the group, including the accused’s friends, drove around between parties.
Around the time they arrived at one on Dinwiddie Ave, in the suburb of Onekawa, one of the murder-accused’s friends was told that Kaea had touched his girlfriend at a party a few weeks earlier. That friend reacted badly.
On the street outside the party, a circle of people formed around Kaea, who the witness didn’t know at the time, punching and kicking him.
The witness was sitting on the lap of the murder-accused in a car. When he saw what was happening, she said he pushed her off him, jumped out and joined in. She tried to stop the accused, as she didn’t want him getting involved.
“I knew it was a fight. I just didn’t know who was fighting,” she said.
She didn’t see a knife, but at one stage saw Kaea on the ground, surrounded. She then saw him get up and sprint around the corner, to Alexander Ave, where he subsequently collapsed and died.
The witness said some of the group, including the murder-accused, followed. They returned minutes later. At the time the witness was taking a “boomerang” with her mates – a selfie for Instagram.
“All I heard was laughing. And when he [the accused] saw me, he grabbed my phone off me,” the witness said. “There was blood on him, but I didn’t see that until after he grabbed my phone.”
The murder-accused recorded a video of his bloodied right hand, in which he was holding a knife.
“After he took the video, I snatched my phone back. They just all hopped back in the car.”
The video has been played to the court several times. In it someone yells “sieg f****** heil” – a common phrase among the Mongrel Mob. The witness said it sounded like one of the murder-accused’s friends.
The witness said a group, including the murder-accused, sped back to Flaxmere, spending the night at her house. She said they didn’t talk about what happened, but the murder-accused had blood on his hands and one of his friends had a deep cut to his hand.
They left the following morning and shortly after the murder-accused messaged and asked the witness to send him the video, which she did.
Grisly scene examined
Forensic scientist Glenys Knight said she examined the scene in the aftermath of Kaea’s death and traced blood along Dinwiddie Ave into the Alexander Ave property where he collapsed.
Some blood samples were taken for DNA analysis to identify who they belonged to.
“I would love to get a lot more done, but it’s a very expensive process so we have to be selective.”
Knight told the jury the “initial blood-letting incident” happened on Dinwiddie Ave, before drops of blood headed up the road and around the corner. She said it was possible to see the direction someone was headed by looking at how blood had hit a surface.
About Dinwiddie Ave, she described several photographs shown to the jury: “On the concrete in front of the gate we can see numerous blood stains, some of which are quite large. These are indications that large blood stains are being released from the body under hydraulic pressure, so the pressure of the heart, in this instance, is pumping out blood.
“In this case it means that Kaea received an arterial breach in this area and his artery was bleeding – shooting out a lot of blood.”
Following the spatter on Alexander Ave, she said it appeared Kaea had tried to clear a large gate into a property, but had instead jumped over a smaller fence.
“There was a lot of what we call ‘transfer blood staining’ on the top of that fence, which shows that a blood-stained surface has directly contacted the top of that fence and transferred some blood on to that area.”
The trial continues.