The trial of Dr Venod Skantha
The trial of a doctor accused of murdering a 16-year-old Dunedin girl has gripped the city. Reporter Hamish McNeilly recounts key evidence from the first week of the three-week trial
The diminutive doctor sits down and pours a glass of water for each of the Corrections’ officers flanking him. That small gesture of kindness comes minutes after Venod Skantha, a junior doctor at Dunedin Hospital, quietly reaffirms his ‘‘not guilty’’ plea on a charge of murder, and then four counts of threatening to kill.
The body of Amber-Rose Rush, 16, was found by her mother, Lisa Ann, in the bedroom of her Clermiston Ave home in the Dunedin suburb of Corstorphine on February 3, 2018.
Lisa Ann later died of a suspected suicide and some of their family members, wearing t-shirts with photographs of their loves ones, were in court.
But not on Thursday morning when Crown prosecutor Robin Bates cautioned that photos of her injuries would be produced as evidence.
That included a crime scene picture showing Amber-Rose’s bedroom, complete with detailed hand-drawn picture adorning the walls, and her lifeless body lying beside a blood-stained bed.
Forensic pathologist Dr Kate White concluded that the teen died ‘‘from an incised wound to the left side of the neck’’.
That 11cm cut partially severed her left ear, as well as her carotid artery and windpipe. She also had several other stab wounds around her neck, and ‘‘superficial’’ cuts along her throat.
The Crown allege Skantha, a junior doctor at Dunedin Hospital, feared Amber-Rose was about to tell his employer and police about a sexual assault, which would effectively end his already faltering medical career.
In his opening, prosecutor Richard Smith said Skantha only kept his job after he had lied that his mother had just died, and his motive to killing AmberRose was to ‘‘silence her’’.
Skantha and Amber-Rose had been messaging each other on the night of February 2, and a mutual friend – a star witness in the trial – alerted him to an Instagram post she had made detailing those allegations.
Amber-Rose messaged Skantha at 11.17pm, saying. ‘‘You’re preying on young kids Vinny, what the f... is wrong with you’’.
‘‘I’m going to make sure everyone knows what a sick (person) you are, including your work and the police.’’
Skantha, the Crown allege, had a ‘‘masterplan’’ and arranged to meet his male friend near South Rd – about a fourminute drive from Amber-Rose’s home.
That friend told Skantha that the Rush family had a spare key under a buddha statue by the door, and drew a rough map of the home’s layout on the dashboard of the doctor’s late model BMW.
But his defence counsel, Jonathan Eaton QC, says the murder was an ‘‘intruder who knew how to get into the house in the dark of night, an intruder who knew where her bedroom was ... that intruder was not Venod Skantha’’.
In his opening he reminded the 10 men and two women on the jury that his client has the presumption of innocence, and many of the postings on the internet on the case were ‘‘racially charged’’ and offensive.
The trial at the High Court of Dunedin, which is expected to take three weeks, heard evidence from Amber-Rose’s sister, Shantelle, who said her sister once wanted to move into Skantha’s
‘‘flash’’ Fairfield home with another teen friend.
While the younger sister said Skantha was
‘‘like a dad to us’’,
Shantelle warned he was more like a
‘‘sugar daddy’’ and urged her to google the words ‘‘sexual grooming’’.
Amber-Rose was ‘‘gutted’’ when Lisa Ann told her youngest, who was taken out of her school the previous year and was working at central city New World, that she should not go flatting with Skantha.
Shantelle told the court about another online conversation she had with AmberRose who said she had used Skantha’s credit card to buy something from the online store Wish, and he would not even notice the missing money.
In another conversation, Amber-Rose told her older sister that she was planning to go to Skantha’s house with Lisa Ann to try to get money out of him, after he offered the teen $50 for sex, before raising it to $20,000.
Shantelle’s last message to her sister, which she did not see until the morning after her body was discovered, said ‘‘I’m so angry’’, sent at 11.26pm.
Amber-Rose replied to a message to her boyfriend, Kristin Clark, at 11.53pm, saying ‘‘I won’t be allowed’’.
A minute late he messaged ‘‘I’m willing to do anything for you. I can pick you up’’, but she never replied.
Clark told the court that Amber-Rose had sent him screenshots of the conversation with the defendant, and he was concerned about her well-being, so much so that he drove to her home and knocked on her window several times, about 12.10pm.
He left after seeing her brother Jayden return home with his partner. Jayden told the court he found the spare key under the buddha in the door, and the light left on, both unusual events at the Rush family home.
He knocked on Amber’s door, but noone answered. It was likely she was already dead, as in the Crown’s opening they contend she was murdered ‘‘close to midnight’’.
The next morning her mother initially thought her daughter suffered a nosebleed, as she opened the bedroom to let out the ageing and docile family dog, Storm, spotting some blood.
But when her youngest daughter, did not move she started to scream.
Her partner Brendon MacNee ran in and saw Amber-Rose lying face down, and ‘‘lots of lots of blood’’.
MacNee said he slapped Amber-Rose’s face, and then tried to perform CPR but she ‘‘was all stiff and cold’’.
It was then when the former butcher saw her throat had been cut, he looked for a murder weapon.
He told Amber-Rose’s brother Jayden to leave the room he had just entered.
‘‘We’ve got to get out of here, she’s been murdered.’’
Police drain quarry swamp
As police launched ‘Operation Clermiston’ they soon zeroed in on Skantha, who had left for Balclutha – an hour south of Dunedin – with his male teen friend in the early hours of Saturday morning.
But not before, the Crown allege, disposing of Amber-Rose’s white Huawai mobile in a swamp at Blackhead Quarry. That swamp was later drained and the phone recovered and then replicated by police.
And the pair also, the Crown allege, returned to his home where the male teen was told to clean the car, which he had been driving.
Meanwhile, in the South Otago town Skantha walked into the bedroom of his former girlfriend, lawyer Brigid Clinton, after not showing up on Friday after work.
On Saturday morning around breakfast time he suggested they toast some marshmallows, and bought items from The Warehouse, including a terracotta pot.
Using that pot he later lit a fire, and ‘‘Venod said he was burning his daggiest clothes,’’ Clinton tells the court.
Later that night he told her his friend Amber-Rose had killed herself, and the trio returned to Dunedin on Sunday.
The court heard that the male teen friend, who is yet to give evidence, received a call from Lisa Ann, wanting to speak to friends of her daughter.
After buying a card and flowers from the same supermarket where Amber-Rose used to work, they visited the grieving mum – and an unnamed friend – in a hotel room.
Clinton told the court that the defendant hugged Lisa Ann and later asked if her daughter died of suicide, to which ‘‘she vehemently said ‘no"’.
Skantha named some possible other suspects.
Samurai sword accident
After dropping off their teen friend, the pair bought KFC, and returned to Fairfield on Sunday afternoon.
Skantha was becoming ‘‘angsty’’ and wanted to visit his teen friend, but he wasn’t home.
The pair returned to Fairfield and Skantha, who had been drinking, cut himself on a samurai sword he owned.
‘‘And I carried on eating my KFC,’’ she said before driving him to a doctor, with the pair seemingly unaware police were following them.
Under the ruse that she may have been drink-driving, police pulled over Clinton and brought her in for questioning on Sunday evening.
Soon, police would have Skantha in their sights, and he has remained in custody since being charged with murder on February 20, 2018.
Skantha has remained impassive during the trial. He appears to have no family or friends in the public gallery, though attempts to connect with his former girlfriend with a smile as she leaves the stand. Clinton did not meet his gaze.
A total of 50 witnesses will be called during the three-week trial before Justice Gerald Nation.