Murder accused ‘injected woman’

‘‘I just injected someone and she’s not going to be around much longer.’’ Those were the words a witness claimed Rose Morgan said to him on the morning of Sunday, February 7, 2016.

Morgan is on trial with Tyler Baillie for the murder of Tracey-Anne Harris, who was found dead in her Marlowe St, Stoke home on February 11, 2016.

The Crown have alleged that the pair gave Harris a drug overdose on February 7, then killed her by smothering her with a pillow.

The defence for Morgan questioned the truth of the testimony, saying the witness had lied about the statement in order to get reduced jail time.

Jacob Harmon gave testimony in the High Court at Nelson yesterday, on the seventh day of the murder trial. He said he had been at Morgan’s house on Brunner St at the beginning of February 2016, having recently moved back there after a stint in 2015.

He said that on February 6, he babysitted Morgan’s children while she was out, before going to sleep downstairs in a detached unit.

Harmon said he woke the next day after being slapped in the face with a 5g bag of meth by Baillie, and was told to see Morgan in her room. It was there, he told the jury, that Morgan said she had given someone an overdose of drugs.

‘‘Rose said to us, ‘Guess what I just did? I just injected someone and they’re not going to be around for much longer’.’’

He said Morgan didn’t mention any names, but said it was a woman who lived on Marlowe St.

Later that day, Harmon said, Morgan asked him to go with her and Harris’s daughter, Annaleise, to the Marlowe St property. The plan was to pick up clothes for Annaleise, as she had none spare after being taken to Brunner St by Baillie earlier in the week.

Replying to Crown prosecutor Jackson Webber, Harmon said he had never met Harris before, or Annaleise prior to that week.

‘‘Why did you need to go?’’ Webber asked. ‘‘When Annaleise asked what’s wrong with her mum, I was to say she was sleeping,’’ Harmon replied.

He said he refused to go with Morgan, and moved out of the house a few days later.

In cross-examination, defence lawyer Michael Vesty said there had been inconsistencies between Harmon’s evidence in court and written testimony given to police in 2016.

Harmon said his memory had improved since he stopped using drugs. Throughout 2016 and much of 2017, he had been consuming methamphetamine and cannabis daily.

Vesty suggested that much of his testimony was ‘‘made up’’, including the evidence about Morgan’s confession, to get a better deal for an aggravated robbery he pleaded guilty to in 2017.

Vesty said Harmon did not sign the statement he made in 2016 until September 2017, two months before he was sentenced.

Under re-examination from Webber, Harmon said he hadn’t signed the original statement because he had been afraid of recriminations.