McKAY ‘CRAZED BY JEALOUSY’ PROSECUTOR CLAIMS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 3

McKAY ‘CRAZED BY JEALOUSY’ PROSECUTOR CLAIMS

Murder Trial Opens In Auckland

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, August 15.

Jealous and obsessed after being spurned by Anne Elizabeth Kievit, Kenneth Mervyn McKay stabbed her to death in a secluded area near his home and partly disembowelled her body before burying it on the banks of the Gratia stream, the Grown Solicitor at Auckland, Mr G. D. Speight, alleged in the Supreme Court today.

McKay, aged 39, a truck driver, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mrs Kievit, aged 37, the mother of three children, at Henderson on May 2.

The trial, before Mr Justice Gresson and an all-male jury, is expected to last all week. The Crown will call 56 witnesses.

After the jury had been empanelled his Honour granted leave to McKay to sit at a table in front of the dock. Mr Speight, with him Mr K. Palmer, is conducting the Crown case. Mr P. A. Williams and Mr K. Ryan appear for McKay. Mr Speight said the Crown alleged that McKay lay in wait for Mrs Kievit on the morning of Monday, May 2. Evidence would be that accused accosted her, rendered her unconscious, stabbed her near his own home and then partly disembowelled her body and buried it. “Unpleasant Facts” “This brief, harsh outline of brittle facts is sufficient to indicate that the matters with which we will be dealing are ones of the highest degree of unpleasantness and the evidence may perhaps give rise to feelings of distaste,” Mr Speight said. He asked the jury to approach the subject calmly and deliberately. “It would be a Lragic thing if, in this or in any other criminal proceeding, the ordinary course of fairness were perverted because of the horrifying nature of matters under review.” Evidence would show that about 18 months ago accused and the dead woman became acquainted and during 1965 McKay frequently called at Mrs Kievit’s house, was often seen with her and was on intimate terms with her.

McKay had spoken to others about his desire to marry Mrs Kievit. Counsel said it appeared Mrs Kievit became less than enthusiastic about their friendship. McKay, in turn, appeared to have been jealous of the possibility of Mrs Kievit associating with other men. In Trance Mr Speight said evidence would show that McKay had been patrolling about Mrs Kievit’s house for quite some time to see whether she had other men visiting her and once, when visited at his home, McKay was found to be in some form of a trance, lying on his bed saying “1 will kill them, I will kill them.” This indicated, in the Crown’s submission, that Me Kay was thoroughly obsessed and preoccupied with Mrs Kievit’s refusal of him. On the morning of May 2, Mrs Kievit did not report to her work at a local winery, but the first person to take alarm was Mrs Carrick,, mother of Mrs Kievit, when the dead woman did not arrive home. Mrs Carrick reported this to the police. They went to the Kievit house but found no sign of the missing woman. Not Home Because of the known association between McKay and Mrs Kievit a constable went to McKay’s home. McKay was not there,. “Next day inquiries were

commenced with more vigour, and two constables called at 192 Station road and spoke tc the accused, McKay, who was in bed in the bedroom in the front of the house.

“McKay told them that he had not seen her and that he was under a court bond not to do so and that he had been ill in bed for the last few days,” said Mr Speight.

“On this topic it is perhaps worthy of note that although he claimed then and subsequently with great vigour that he was very ill and quite incapacitated and incapable of going outside, a doctor had seen him on the Sunday night and this doctor says that all that was wrong with McKay was a sore throat, that it was a minor ailment only, and in the doctor’s opinion McKay was quite capable of being up and about.” About 100 yards upstream from McKay’s house a constable found a raincoat partially submerged in water. He did not attach great significance at the time because of its rather aged condition and he tossed it over a nearby tree stump at the water’s edge.

Gumboots Found On the Thursday Chief Inspector Mathieson found basketball boots, two pairs of socks and a pair of gumboots near the Oratia stream. The tops of the gumboots, on which were written the name Kievit, had been cut off and pushed into the mud below water level. A further search produced a bicycle pump, an airline bag and, tucked under a bank, a pair of men’s trousers, a singlet and a pair of blue rubber gloves. Inquiries soon after showed that the gumboots, the airline bag, the gloves and the raincoat belonged to Mrs Kievit. McKay was seen by the police that day and admitted that the trousers, the basketball boots and the socks were his but said he did not know how they came to be in the stream. He told the police they must i have been stolen from his back shed with a canvas fishing bag containing reels and knives some weeks earlier. Scratched Knees McKay denied owning the singlet. On Thursday, May 5, detectives interviewing McKay noticed that he had fine scratches on his knees and shins. A doctor found these to be the sort of marks which could be caused by walking through gorse or blackberry, which abounded in the area. The search continued and on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Navy divers and police recovered from the stream in an area next to the accused’s house and downstream for about 200 yards pieces of human body and woman’s clothing. When seen by DetectiveInspector Stevenson on May 9, McKay had spoken of ambitions to marry Mrs Kievit, Mr Speight said. . McKay had claimed he had not seen Mrs Kievit since April 6, after a court order bound him to keep the peace and not molest Mrs Kievit. Hole In Hedge About 2ft had been cut off the top of the hedge outside McKay’s bedroom window so that he could watch people, including Mrs Kievit, passing along the track beside the railway line, said Mr Speight. In a gap between the irregularly spaced hedge trees near the railway line a cluster of hair was found on a strand of barbed wire. Mr Speight said spots of blood were also found on a hedge trunk on the opposite side of this small gap and, more significantly, a badlybent knife in the long grass.

Later, plans wefe put into effect to drain and divert the Oratia stream. It was after this that a detective found the buried body of 'Mrs Kievit in a carefully concealed shallow grave underneath foliage and fallen logs. Pathologists would say that concussional blows to the back of the neck were suffi-

cient to render the woman unconscious but did not kill her and that a large stab wound in the body could have been caused by the knife found in the long grass near the hedge. Knocked Unconscious Evidence would also be that Mrs Kievit had been knocked unconscious at the railway line and dragged down the gully to the edge of the stream, where the probably fatal stab wound had been inflicted. The bend in the knife, which might have been accidentally dropped by McKay, was consistent with it having struck the backbone of the dead woman. Husband’s Evidence Pieter Kievit, husband of the dead woman, told the Court that he was in Australia at the time of his wife’s death. He said he married Mrs Kievit nine years ago but the marriage had been unhappy. To Mr Williams, Kievit admitted that before they were legally separated he and his wife “had a few scraps from time to time.” Kievit said he had not been back to New Zealand apart from his present visit.

Frederick Leslie Neilson, a hotel manager, of Canberra, said he had employed Kievit as a cook for a period this year. He produced work records for Kievit covering the time of Mrs Kievit’s death.