Man ‘offered clean-up job’

‘‘Would you ever kill anyone?’’

This was the question a witness says Rose Morgan asked her on the morning of Sunday, February 7, 2016.

The female witness, who has name suppression, had been taken on an early-morning drive with Morgan to an undisclosed address in Richmond.

Morgan and Tyler Baillie are on trial for the murder of TraceyAnne Harris, who was found dead in her home in Marlowe St, Stoke on February 11, 2016. The Crown alleges the pair administered Harris a lethal cocktail of drugs, before killing her by suffocating her with a pillow.

The witness gave evidence in the High Court at Nelson yesterday, the ninth day of the trial.

She said she was woken by Morgan while it was still dark, to go for a drive. Arriving at a house in Richmond, the pair were met by a man who gave Morgan a container of unspecified pills and told them, ‘‘Don’t take too many or you’ll kill yourself’’.

Back in the car, the witness said, Morgan gave her half of one pill and took the other half herself. She said Morgan then asked her whether she would ever kill anyone, to which she answered no.

Morgan then told her to crush the pills, using a screwdriver that was in the car’s glovebox. The witness said that while she did so, she started to become anxious. After that, she had no memory of what happened, with the half-pill beginning to take effect.

In cross-examination, defence lawyer Michael Vesty asked the woman whether she had consumed drugs and alcohol the night before the drive. She said she had consumed methamphetamine and cannabis, as well as some alcohol, and may have had little or no sleep.

Vesty suggested the witness may have been in ‘‘quite a state’’ by the time she went for the drive with Morgan. ‘‘I wouldn’t say a state, I was aware of what I was doing,’’ she replied. Vesty also questioned whether her recollection of the morning was accurate.

On Wednesday, a witness told the jury Morgan had offered him a ‘‘clean-up’’ job to hide evidence of Harris’s murder, on the week Harris’s body was found.

Witness Blair McNaughton said Morgan had invited him and a friend to her home, offering them money and meth to act as a clean-up crew at the scene of Harris’s death.

He said Morgan told him she had given Harris an injection of drugs, a ‘‘hot shot’’, but it failed to kill her. Morgan, Baillie and another unnamed person had then decided to kill Harris by smothering her with a pillow.

He said Morgan wanted him and his friend to clean up the scene, wiping down door handles and other surfaces, removing syringes, and making it look like the house had been burgled. There were also instructions to remove any fibres from Harris’s mouth, and to place a needle on her arm to make it look like she had administered the drugs herself.

McNaughton said he refused the request.

He said he did not make a statement until September, when he was in police custody for another matter. He had hoped that discussing the case with detectives might help him.