Killing ‘similar to other attacks’
Serial rapist Malcolm Rewa murdered a woman with a baseball bat she kept at the side of her bed for protection, a court heard.
Rewa is facing his third trial at the High Court in Auckland for the alleged murder of Susan Burdett in 1992.
The jury of seven men and five women was told Rewa had been convicted of Burdett’s rape.
Previously, two juries have failed to reach verdicts on a murder trial. Rewa continues to deny he murdered her.
In his opening address, Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes said Burdett left her Papatoetoe home on an evening in March 1992 to play tenpin bowling.
A neighbour in the next door unit heard her arrive home.
A short while later, the same neighbour heard thudding sounds. The neighbour looked outside but saw no lights on at Burdett’s place and thought the sound must have come from somewhere else.
When Burdett failed to turn up to work a friend checked on her.
He found the back door unlocked and found Burdett dead, lying half off her bed. Her lower half was naked and her upper half was covered in a duvet.
Burdett’s baseball bat lay on the bed next to her body.
‘‘You will hear evidence that Ms Burdett kept the bat next to her bed for protection.’’
A post-mortem examination found Burdett had fractures to her skull and would have died within minutes. Kayes said the way Burdett’s body was found had clear connections to many of Rewa’s rapes, carried out between 1987 and 1996.
He said one happened two weeks before Burdett was found dead, and another nine days later.
The similarities included the use of the bedding over the top half of her body, missing personal items and attacks at night on women living alone.
Rewa, 65, listened intently to the court proceedings.
Rewa’s lawyer, Paul Chambers, gave a brief opening and encouraged the jury to keep an open mind.
Rewa was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 1998 for sexual offending against women.
Evidence of the attacks will be presented during the trial.
Although Rewa was convicted of Burdett’s rape based on DNA left at the scene, two juries at two separate trials failed to reach a decision on the murder charge.
Since then, Teina Pora, who at age 17 made a false confession, has had his conviction for the murder quashed.