It\u2019s that same quickness to anger that might have prompted the 33-year-old to steer her speeding car towards pedestrian Teri Erueti Rhind earlier that morning, prosecutors suggested yesterday as Crawford\u2019s murder trial began in the High Court at Auckland. <\/p>\n
Rhind, 37, died at Middlemore Hospital in October 2024, several days after he was found badly injured along Pukekohe\u2019s Wellington Street. He had laid in the road unnoticed by anyone else for about 45 minutes, suffering substantial road rash, an indentation on his chest from broken ribs and a damaged vertebral artery that would eventually cut off blood flow and oxygen to his brain. <\/p>\n
The impact, caught on grainy black and white footage from a neighbour\u2019s security camera, was played for jurors for the first time as Crown prosecutors Aysser Al-Janabi and Sylvie Arnerich gave an opening address. <\/p>\n
It showed, they said, the defendant initially driving past Rhind on an otherwise \u201cunremarkable street\u201d at almost exactly 2am before U-turning and driving over the speed limit at the stranger on the wrong side of the road. <\/p>\n
Upon contact, Rhind flew up into the air before crashing to the concrete, Al-Janabi told jurors. <\/p>\n
\u201cMs Crawford did not stop,\u201d she added. \u201cShe accelerated away, and she drove away from the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Aysser Al-Janabi. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Rhind, who was suffering a mental health episode that morning, had been witnessed by others before the crash shouting as he went for a walk. While the defendant\u2019s precise motive is unknown, perhaps Crawford\u2019s blood began to boil when the pedestrian shouted something as she drove by, prosecutors speculated. <\/p>\n
Defence lawyers Ethan Butler and Kelly-Ann Stoikoff acknowledged their client was driving the vehicle as it fatally hit Rhind. But that doesn\u2019t equate to murder, they said, noting that it was dark and there were cars lining both sides of the street. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an unfortunate, tragic accident when Mr Rhind came out of nowhere, wandering all over the road during one of his episodes,\u201d Butler said during his opening statement, urging jurors not to make a snap judgment based on their first viewing of the CCTV footage. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more you watch that clip, the more you will agree it was an accident and Toni Crawford is not guilty of murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under court rules, the defence opening statement was much shorter than the Crown\u2019s address, but the defence will get another chance to address jurors after prosecutors finish calling evidence. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors also suggested to jurors that a decision won\u2019t be made solely on the CCTV. Crawford\u2019s behaviour in the hours and days after the crash are also telling, Al-Janabi said. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy sexy love stop it please,\u201d she wrote while still parked in the neighbourhood of the man who claimed to be in Australia. \u201cI\u2019m in trouble, okay. <\/p>\n
\u201cI actually just wanted to come see you. I have mind works issues. I really need your help, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
Later that morning, still before sunrise, she went to another friend\u2019s house and claimed to have hit a tree. But she was \u201cantsy\u201d and evasive when asked about her damaged car, at one point mentioning something about needing bleach for fingerprints, the witness is expected to say. <\/p>\n
Another person showed up and was similarly intrigued, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n
Toni-Ashley Crawford appears in the High Court at Auckland, accused of having murdered Teri Rhind in Pukekohe in October 2024. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
\u201cI looks like you hit someone. Where\u2019s the body?\u201d the man joked, to which the defendant and her other friend both replied: \u201cWe\u2019ve left them for the rats.\u201d <\/p>\n
Her other explanations for the night were that the car had been stolen and she woke up in the passenger seat, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n
Police attention was directed at Crawford three days after the crash, after a friend had removed her windscreen at her request and had left the glass rolled up in his autobody shop. <\/p>\n
The witness who had made the offhand \u201cwhere\u2019s the body\u201d remark on the morning of the crash had since learned more about there having been a high-profile fatal crash in the area that at that point was unsolved. <\/p>\n
He asked if he could have the windscreen. His partner then took it to the Pukekohe Police Station, jurors were told. The registration sticker was still on the windscreen when it was handed over, as was Rhind\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n
When police located her, Crawford said she had smoked methamphetamine two days earlier and was coming down, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n
Justice Layne Harvey addresses jurors at the outset of Toni-Ashley Crawford’s murder trial in the High Court at Auckland. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
She then agreed to a lengthy police interview weeks later that prosecutors described as nonsensical and hard to follow at times. In it, she continued to insist that she hit a tree, Al-Janabi told jurors. <\/p>\n
Taken all together, Al-Janabi added, Crawford\u2019s actions amounted to \u201cthe conduct of somebody who was untroubled by what they\u2019d just done\u201d. <\/p>\n
The trial, before Justice Layne Harvey, is set to resume this morning. <\/p>\n