Jefferies jury to decide whether it was murder
Prosecutor: Dumping showed disdain for partner
AHamilton jury will today begin its deliberations on whether Waikato man Cory Jefferies had murderous intent when he killed his partner of 26 years.
Jefferies denies a charge of murder but admits causing
Kim Richmond’s death by manslaughter some time after they left a function at the Arohena Hall in South Waikato early on July 31, 2016.
Cellphone data traced the couple’s movements from leaving the hall back towards their Mangare Rd home about 3.38am. Their Ford Ranger stopped about 130m from their home.
Fitbit data recorded Richmond’s last heartbeat at 3.43am, before the phones were again on the move at 3.48am.
Richmond’s body was left inside the vehicle when it was dumped in Lake Arapuni.
The cellphone and Fitbit data helped in the discovery of her body 11 months later.
The High Court at Hamilton this week was told how Richmond was found in a partial foetal position on the back seat with some of her clothing pulled up behind her neck and a plastic bag over her head and torso.
The Crown and defence yesterday issued their closing statements. Justice Sally Fitzgerald will this morning deliver her summing up before sending the jury out to begin their deliberations. Crown prosecutor Ross Douch told the jury of five men and seven women the fact Jefferies had left Richmond in the vehicle for 11 months showed his “disdain” for her: “It’s contemptuous to leave that woman exposed like that to rot in the utility.”
And Douch said Jefferies’ repeated threats against the victim to various people showed his state of mind.
Douch also urged the jury to remember the lengths to which Jefferies went to hide what he’d done for 11 months by lying to the family, including his children.
“He allows his daughter . . . on the first day to get on the phone and text a dead person. Her mother. That’s what he was driven to by what he’d done.”
Douch said murderous intent stretched from a well thought-out execution to an almost instantaneous killing, where the offender knew death was likely but carried on with the act anyway.
Defence counsel Tom Sutcliffe reminded the jury to come to a decision without sympathy or prejudice.
“You need to put all that to one side. What you are looking at here, as judges, is what the evidence tells you, what facts that you find proven.”
There had been no sign of motivation for his client to kill Richmond that night. It had been an ordinary day before the couple got a lastminute invitation to the local hall to have dinner and watch the rugby. “The evidence clearly shows that Kim’s death . . . was a spontaneous, unscripted event.”
The lake dumping was a “desperate reaction in a very difficult situation”.
“What he did is to cover up this terrible thing that has happened. Unquestionably this ruse is not well thought-out, although effective for a time.
“But self-preservation and . . . the lies that have to be told do not reflect an intention to kill, they reflect the actions of a desperate man.”