A Taranaki man cleaned blood spots from a Lower Hutt flat, where a woman's body was found stuffed in a wardrobe, while his friend listened to opera in the car outside, a court has heard.
In the second week of a jury trial in the High Court at Wellington today, witnesses Christopher Ludbrook and Donald Kerr, both from Hawera in Taranaki, described how they drove down to Lower Hutt because Mr Kerr's friend Malcolm Ngeru was in "big trouble".
Ngeru, 43, is charged with murdering 48-year-old Mihi Tuhoro in the early hours of June 20 last year.
Her body was discovered stuffed in a wardrobe of Ngeru's flat, in the suburb of Pomare, only when Ngeru was arrested on an unrelated matter a month later.
Mr Ludbrook, who said Ngeru was Mr Kerr's friend and not his, said they drove from Hawera to the flat.
He waited in his car outside for nearly an hour while Mr Kerr went inside.
"I had time to play an opera cassette, which was about 45 minutes and a little bit more of another one."
Mr Ludbrook, who was unaware of what was going on in the flat, said the other two men then came out and he drove Ngeru to an address in Petone.
Along the way Ngeru dumped a small item of clothing, which could have been a cloth, into a clothing recycling bin.
Mr Ludbrook said he initially meant to drive to his sister's place in Wellington.
"But in my anxious state I thought we were being followed and I didn't want any of Malcolm's cohorts to find out where she was."
Instead, Mr Ludbrook and Mr Kerr returned to Hawera that night.
Earlier, Mr Kerr, 76, who had known Ngeru for more than 10 years, and had regularly lent him money, described Ngeru's flat as surprisingly tidy.
He remembered cleaning a spot of blood off a table that was about the size of half a thumbnail. There were also a few spots of blood in the living room, which he cleaned up.
The conversation at the flat was jumbled and Mr Kerr could not recall exactly what was said.
Mr Kerr admitted his memory was failing him and he also struggled to recall the exact details of phone calls from Ngeru prior to the Lower Hutt visit.
Ngeru may have mentioned "having done somebody in" but did not say specifically he had murdered anyone.
Mr Kerr said he tried to ask him what he had done but could only find out that it was "worse than having bashed someone".
He did not know if the person was still alive or dead, but believed Ngeru had probably murdered someone, he said.
Mr Kerr said he was "between the devil and the deep blue sea".
He didn't tell anybody about the phone calls as he didn't want to get his friend into any more trouble than he was.
"No matter what I did it was wrong somewhere."
Last week, the court heard how Ngeru told police he remembered drinking with Ms Tuhoro and waking up with her dead next to him, but said he did not know how it had happened.
She suffered a severe skull fracture and bleeding on the brain, which eventually led to her death, the court was told.
The trial, before Justice Denis Clifford, is expected to go into next week.
