Helping solve amurder case
Soon after a fatal shooting, a man walked into a police station and told a detective what happened. Forensic science proved he wasn’t telling the truth. Jimmy Ellingham reports.
Anondescript red brick unit in central Palmerston North was the scene of a fatal shooting on the afternoon of September 4, 2009.
The victim, Jamie Faulkner, had grabbed the heavily modified sawn-off gun from which a fatal shot passed through his chest, staggered outside and died. Police followed the trail of blood back to the scene of the crime.
Nobody else was at the property, but inside lay clues that helped crack the case, as explored in Forensics NZ: Operation Blue, airing on Prime TV at 9.30pm tonight.
Police quickly found out James Andrew Mills, known as Jamie, and Rachel Marie Parker lived there. The pair were drug users and the flat was untidy, with a tablecloth hanging over the front door glass and a CD called Getting Away With
Murder playing.
Mills soon turned up at Palmerston North’s central police station, asking to speak to a detective.
He said he was alone at the Heretaunga St flat when Faulkner, 32, arrived and the pair argued. During later court cases the Crown said Faulkner went there after receiving texts from Parker’s phone about a $140 drug deal.
Mills told police Faulkner pulled a gun on him, but he grabbed it, stumbled backwards and it fired into Faulkner. Faulkner then grabbed the gun and struck Mills with it.
But, then-detective Brendon Gerrish tells the South Pacific Pictures documentary: ‘‘His story has sections of untruths.’’
That included inconsistencies in from where Faulkner supposedly pulled the weapon. Mills said it came from Faulkner’s trousers, then said it came from his jacket.
Mills claimed he had no memory of what happened between the incident at the flat and arriving at the police station.
His explanation was far from the end of getting to the bottom of what happened. After an exhaustive examination of the scene, Faulkner’s clothing and the gun held the key.
‘‘Physical evidence doesn’t tell lies. It doesn’t forget things. It’s the perfect witness,’’ ESR senior forensic scientist Angus Newton tells the documentary.
He examined the gun, which had been shortened and its wooden stock replaced with a plastic pistol grip. It had no magazine. Instead, each round needed to be loaded into the chamber.
‘‘It had been horribly modified into a very dangerous weapon,’’ Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Sheridan says.
‘‘It’s really sad to think that somebody has lost their life over what on the face of it would appear to be a $140 deal that hasn’t gone quite so well.’’
An expended cartridge case found at the scene matched the one discharged when Faulkner was shot. Additionally, a sawnoff piece of gun barrel at the flat matched the weapon, while the pistol grip came from a BB gun also found at the property.
This cast doubt on Mills’ comments about Faulkner pulling the weapon.
In the documentary, Newton explains how Faulkner was shot in the chest. The bulletwent through Faulkner then hit the flat’s Gib before striking bricks.
Using the hole in the Gib and mark in the bricks, Newton worked out the trajectory of the bullet – it was fired slightly downwards. Human tissue and blood marks show Faulknerwas near the wall when the shot was fired.
Mills initially told police Faulkner was holding the gun’s muzzle when it went off.
Newton tested this in the lab using fabric. Shots fired at such close range left clear burn marks. ‘‘Therewas nothing like this on [Faulkner’s] sweatshirt, so we knew Mr Faulkner couldn’t have been holding the barrel when it was fired.’’
He concluded there would have been at least 50 centimetres between the gun and Faulkner.
Newton tells the documentary the sweatshirt was a ‘‘key piece of evidence in the investigation’’.
On its right sleeve were seven small holes where the bullet passed through the bunched material without striking Faulkner’s arm, before it grazed his chin and entered his chest.
For the bullet to go through his clothing in such away Faulkner would have been crouching with his right elbow above his shoulder.
‘‘The evidence lends more support to a suggestion of a defensive posture than any suggestion of a tussle or fight.’’
As for Parker, CCTV footage from nearby shops showed her and Mills walking past together shortly after the shooting. And a can of beer, the same brand as one she was carrying when caught on camera, was found at the flat, smeared with lipstick. This suggested she was possibly present.
Mills was again interviewed by police. He didn’t want to speak any more and was charged.
In 2010 he pleaded guilty to murdering Faulkner, a father to a young child, and was jailed for life, with aminimum term of 11 years.
At his sentencing, the judge toldmills: ‘‘Thiswas amindless piece of violence in which you shot an unarmed man who was tricked into coming to your home.
‘‘You showed him no mercy while hewas cowering in a corner of the room.’’
Parker was also charged with murder and faced trial in 2012.
At her trial the Crown argued she and Mills lured Faulkner to the flat and hatched a plan to have Mills threaten him with a gun to enforce the deal.
A text sent from Parker’s phone to Faulkner said: ‘‘You better be by yourself. Don’t want anyone knowing my hobbies eh hun?’’
Faulkner arrived at 3.35pm and texted Parker’s phone, asking to bemet out the front.
‘‘Come in ... Unlocked. Just getting re-dressed, mate,’’ came the reply.
A neighbour heard a disturbance and a woman’s voice shout ‘‘Jamie, Jamie’’.
Parker was interviewed by police in 2011. She said she struggled to remember much from the time Faulkner was killed.
‘‘I didn’t shoot anybody or set up anybody else to be shot or have anything to do with anything like that. I feel like a victim myself.’’
But Parker was known to be controlling of the frail Mills.
Part-way through her trial, Parker pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was jailed for six years and four months, with aminimum term of three years and two months.
At her sentencing her lawyer read a letter she wrote, which said: ‘‘I don’t know why [Mills] pulled the trigger that day. It haunts me and always will.’’
Parker was released on parole in August 2015, having in prison successfully taken herself off the methadone programme for drug addicts. She told the Parole Board she would never get over being responsible for a death and said she was motivated to live a drug-free and crime-free life.
Mills, meanwhile, filed an appeal against his conviction that year, saying he should be convicted of manslaughter because Faulknerwas shot by accident.
Mills claimed he pleaded guilty to murder in error when he was stressed and had been using drugs, such as P, cannabis, Ritalin and valium. He also said he was trying to protect Parker, thinking she wouldn’t be charged if he admitted the charge.
The Court of Appeal last year rejected the possibility Faulkner was shot in a struggle and found there was no basis to suggest Mills’ mind was adversely affected by drugs when he made his plea, nor that his lawyer didn’t inform him about what the charge meant.
Millswas declined parole late last year. He will next be considered for release in May next year.
Sheridan tells Stuff the case highlights the importance of scene examinations.
‘‘They are actually critical and they take time. A lot of people may think they know what happened pretty much straight away, but scene examinations are required to corroborate what people say or don’t say, and identify key things. The examinations themselves can take quite some time then, of course, waiting for the results can take some time.’’
Faulkner’s mother Dulcie Colman says he is still serving a life sentence, which will never end. ‘‘I’m very proud of the police and forensic people and everyone else. They did an amazing job. I thank them for the outstanding work they did to bring justice for my son ... They never gave up.’’
In the documentary, Newton says: ‘‘This case is unique in that we were able to reconstruct almost everything that occurred at the scene at that moment the shot was fired ... The scene decided to tell everything. It’s just up to us to listen to the story.’’
‘‘They [scene examinations] are actually critical and they take time. A lot of people may think they know what happened pretty much straight away, but scene examinations are required to corroborate what people say or don’t say, and identify key things.’’
Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Sheridan