Defence lawyer points finger at son
Counsel suggests McKay murdered his mum for money
Susan Burdett’s son, once a police suspect, has been accused of murdering his mum by the lawyer acting for the serial rapist now on trial for the killing. The 39-year-old accounts clerk was raped and killed in her Auckland home in 1992.
On Monday, a third trial of serial rapist Malcolm Rewa for the murder began in the High Court at Auckland.
In 1998, Rewa was convicted of Burdett’s rape but two juries that year were unable to decide whether he was responsible for her death.
Rewa, now 65 and needing a walking cane, has also been convicted of raping several women between 1987 and 1996.
Yesterday his lawyer, Paul Chambers, accused Burdett’s son Dallas McKay of murdering his mother.
In March 1992, McKay was an aluminum fabricator living in Kamo, Whangārei, where he still lives today.
Chambers alleged McKay travelled to Auckland to kill Burdett and then back to Whangārei between 11pm and 7am.
McKay inherited a “large sum of money” — about $250,000 — from Burdett’s life insurance policy after she altered her will, the court heard.
But McKay said he wasn’t aware the will had been amended until after Burdett’s death.
“You had ample opportunity to travel from Whangārei, get into [Burdett’s] house, kill your mother, leave the house, and get back home,” Chambers said in cross-examination.
“So what are you accusing me of?” McKay replied. “I thought the question was pretty clear,” Chambers said.
“You’re joking,” said McKay. “I’m telling you I did not, ’ cause I’m not the one on trial here.”
Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes later bluntly asked McKay: “Did you kill Susan Burdett?”
“No, I did not,” McKay said. Burdett’s biological son earlier told the court he first met his mother when he was a young man after being raised by his grandparents.
He remembered her love of tenpin bowling and her many trophies.
“She wasn’t too bad, but she wasn’t as good as me,” he said.
He recalled Wednesday, March 25, 1992. While at work he heard a news bulletin on the radio, the details of which increased throughout the day, of a 39-year-old woman living alone in Papatoetoe found bludgeoned to death. “I thought nah, can’t be, couldn’t possibly be,” he said, but admitting his concern about Burdett.
McKay rang her work and became more agitated about her welfare.
Under cross-examination, McKay said he realised “pretty much straight away” that police were treating him as a suspect after learning of Burdett’s death. Police searched his home.
Other aspects of McKay’s evidence were suppressed.
Kayes earlier alleged Rewa entered Burdett’s home on March 23, raped her and murdered her.
Her body was found two days later by friend Steven Dawson.
It was an attack, Kayes said, which displayed a “striking resemblance” to Rewa’s other sexual assaults.
Forensic evidence concluded Burdett had been hit across the head at least five times by a blunt instrument, Kayes told the court.
The weapon was the baseball bat Burdett kept as protection — she would have died within minutes.
Teina Pora was twice wrongly convicted for murdering Burdett on the back of a false confession.
He spent 22 years in prison before the Privy Council quashed his conviction in 2015. He has since received an apology from the Government and $3.5 million in compensation.
Malcolm Rewa is currently serving a preventive detention prison sentence.