Mon, 11 Oct 2010
Otago Daily Times
Two men are blaming
each other over the murder of a transvestite cannabis dealer who was bashed to
death in his Upper Hutt home last year.
David Shaun Galloway,
20, and Phillip Christopher Sanders, 42, pleaded not guilty to the murder of
Richard Milton Jones, 64, when they appeared in the High Court at Wellington
today.
Lawyers for each
accused told the jury the other man was responsible for the fatal blows.
Mr Jones, who wore
women's clothing and was known as Dixie, died from head injuries after he was
assaulted in his Totara Park Rd flat on April 29 last year.
He suffered a fractured
skull, multiple fractures to his ribs, internal injuries and bruising to his
face, arms, legs and chest.
Crown prosecutor Simon
Barr said the injuries were consistent with sustained hitting, stomping and
kicking about the body and head.
Sanders had known Mr
Jones for some time and had visited his home a number of times, while his
friend Galloway had visited the home on at least one occasion.
Sanders and Mr Jones
had fallen out in the months before the death, after Mr Jones complained to
Sanders' probation officer that he had been selling his prescription medicine,
which led to Sanders' prescription being reduced by his doctor.
Mr Barr said Sanders
was upset and angry on the afternoon of Mr Jones' death, which was also
Sanders' birthday, because he had struggled to get a prescription filled at a
pharmacy.
He and Galloway drank a
bottle of bourbon in an Upper Hutt park before Sanders went to Mr Jones' flat
about 3pm. Galloway entered the flat a short time later.
A neighbour heard
yelling and banging coming from the flat and told another neighbour to call
police.
Police arrived to find
Sanders and Galloway in an agitated state, as though they had been exerting
themselves.
Mr Jones was
"broken and motionless and lying on the floor", Mr Barr said.
His blood was spattered
on the walls of his bedroom, and was also found on the clothes and shoes worn
by Sanders and Galloway.
The men "in
essence blamed each other" in interviews with police, Mr Barr said.
Sanders told police Mr
Jones had come at him with a knife, accusing him of theft. He said he hit Mr
Jones in the head, but denied further involvement.
Galloway told police he
had gone to the flat to "bash" a transvestite.
He described Mr Jones
as an elderly man "that dresses up as a ******* chick", adding he did
not like "that kind of thing".
"I believe in Adam
and Eve, not Adam and Steve," he told police. "It needs to learn a
******* lesson."
Galloway later altered
his claim, saying he had gone to Mr Jones' house to buy a cannabis tinnie.
Mr Barr told the jury
both men had laid blows and encouraged each other in the attack.
Sanders' lawyer, Paul
Paino, said his client had gone to the house to buy drugs and had no intention
to harm, let alone kill, Mr Jones.
Sanders had no problem
with Mr Jones' sexuality, and had not encouraged the assault.
Mr Paino said Galloway
repeatedly assaulted Mr Jones in a "frenzied attack" in which he
struck him with a television set, he said.
"Galloway went in
and for some reason he lost it," he said.
Galloway's lawyer,
Robert Stevens, said his client did not kill Mr Jones.
He said Sanders had the
motive for the killing and "did it without any encouragement".
The trial, before
Justice Robert Dobson, is set down for four weeks and will hear from more than
70 witnesses.