Accused of stomping friend to death
A south Auckland man has gone on trial accused of stomping his friend to death.
Tione Tione has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Conifer Grove man Troy Wright, 43, who was found dead on September 23 last year.
In the High Court at Auckland on Monday, Crown prosecutor Yelena Yelavich told jurors a forensic pathologist would testify that Wright had died following multiple blunt force traumas to his head and chest.
His injuries were consistent with being stomped, punched and kicked to death, she said.
Tione and Wright had been friends for some months before Wright’s death, the court heard.
Tione lived in a caravan park but expressed an interest in taking over Wright’s lease of his flat. However, Wright had a number of people advise him not to give up his lease.
On September 22 last year Tione helped his brother move house and in the evening they consumed a box of beer. In the early hours of September 23 an argument between the pair ensued, after Tione was said to have turned the music up. Security cameras later captured him walking toward Wright’s home, about 5.40am. At 8am Tione called his brother and said he’d got into a fight with his friend and that his friend was not breathing.
He ignored his brother’s advice to call an ambulance but three hours later phoned again, this time to ask his brother to pick him up, which his brother refused.
Eventually Tione called his ex partner and her mother who collected him from a nearby Bunnings.
He repeated to them that he thought he had killed his friend, that he wanted to ‘‘run’’, and asked them to drop him at an aunt’s home in Pakuranga.
En route they stopped at a payphone and Tione called an ambulance to the Conifer Grove address, despite having a cellphone with him.
When he arrived at his aunt’s house, he agreed that they should call an ambulance. By this time it was 1.15pm.
When police arrived to arrest Tione he admitted beating his friend but denied remembering what the argument was about.
In a short opening address by Tione’s lawyer, Shane Cassidy, he said his client never intended to kill Wright, although he admitted administering the beating.
The trial is expected to last three weeks.