Trail of blood leads towhere body was found

A man allegedly murdered while being kicked out of the Mongrel Mob suffered multiple deep cuts, likely caused with a machete, before dying in a garden.

While the presence of methamphetamine in his system may have hastened his death, a pathologist says the drug alone was not the reason for his death.

Details of Codi Wilkinson’s death were shared in the High Court at Palmerston North yesterday, during the trial of five men accused of killing him.

Quentin Joseph Moananui, Dean Arthur Jennings, Mariota and Jeremiah Su’a, and Jason David Signal deny murdering Wilkinson while kicking him and his friend Kyle Rowe out of the Mongrel Mob in September 2019.

Pathologist Dr Amy Spark performed a post-mortem on Wilkinson after his body was found in a Bunnythorpe garden 15 days after he went missing.

She said Wilkinson’s body had obvious signs of decomposition, but she was still able to identify multiple injuries.

He had two large cuts to his scalp, one to his right forearm, one to his left upper arm, one to his shoulder blade, one to his right lower leg and multiple abrasions and small wounds.

The shoulder blade cut went to the bone, while another fractured part of his leg. Some cuts were in the region of fairly important arteries, meaning he would have lost a fair bit of blood, she said.

The type, angle and depth of cuts meant they were likely caused by a machete, she said.

An internal examination showed nothing significant, but other tests found he had 2.4 milligrams of methamphetamine per litre of blood.

That was enough for a recreational user, but also enough to kill someone, she said. But Wilkinson would have died regardless of meth in his system, likely bleeding out within an hour, she said.

It was fair to hypothesise methamphetamine could make someone bleed faster, but no tests had been done.

She was unable to give detailed answers about how meth may have affectedwilkinson’s demeanour, she said.

‘‘I just deal with dead people.’’

The jury was shown video footage and marks where police did testing to find blood near wherewilkinson died.

The tests showed blood on the road, along grass, up a bank, on to someone’s property and ending in a patch of garden where Wilkinson’s body was found.

The trial continues.