Jury views alleged murder van

Press, 1 October 1983, Page 7

Jury views alleged murder van

The jury and counsel in the High Court murder trial yesterday afternoon inspected a red Marina van from which the Crown says shotgun blasts were fired, killing one member of the Highway 61 motor-cycle gang and seriously wounding another. The trial of three members, one prospective member and one non-member of the Devil’s Henchmen gang on charges of murder and attempted murder began on Tuesday. The Crown case is not yet completed. The van, with the two left side rear windows missing, was suspended from the back of a tow truck outside the entrance to the Number One Court, where the trial is being held, when it was inspected. Most of yesterday afternoon’s hearing consisted of legal argument in the absence of the jury.

Detective Brian Ronald Pearce said that the red Marina van allegedly used in the fatal shooting was found in Ohoka Road near Kaiapoi about 8.30 a.m. on April 23. Two of the windows were missing and there were muddy scuff marks in the rear.

The following day detectives recovered the pieces of the missing windows from a rubbish dump at the premises of the Devil’s Henchmen in Ferry Road, Detective Pearce said. Constable Michael Charles Luxon, of New Brighton, said that he was on patrol in the early hours of April 23 with Constable Mark Barry Young, when they received a radio message that there had been an incident at the Highway 61

headquaters in Worcester Street.

They stopped a van in New Brighton Road outside the All Saints Anglican Church. It had come from Lake Terrace Road.

As he approached the rear of the van, whose windows were blacked out, there was no movement inside it. The driver was told to get out and as he did so the witness saw a machete lying beside the driver’s seat. It was placed so that it was readily accessible to the driver. He put the machete on the bonnet of the police car. The driver was Vaughan Watson.

He realised that there were other persons in the van and he told them to get out and four young men congregated on the grass verge. As he went to speak to the group he noticed a firearm lying under the van. It was found to be a singlebarrelled sawn-off shotgun. The persons who got out of the van in addition to the driver were Lundy, Keetley, Sutherland and Geeson. Lundy, Keetley and Sutherland had pocket knives.

Inside the van were wooden batons, a length of pipe and a double-barrelled shotgun which had been cut down. Also in the van were three live shotgun cartridges and one spent one, and a shotgun magazine, Constable Luxon said.

Michael John Wright, a station officer of the St John Ambulance, said he was in a control car when he was dispatched to 588 Worcester Street, where he arrived at 12.48 a.m. He had been attending an accident in Cranford Street.

There was a group of persons outside the house and he took his emergency kit and attended an obese Maori male with numerous small holes in his chest, lying on the footpath. There was no pulse or respiration. The pupils were fixed and dilated and slightly glazed. He performed cardiac compression but there was no response. In his opinion the man was dead and he could do nothing further.

Inside the house was another Maori man lying on the floor near the doorway. He cut away the top of the man’s shirt and saw numerous small holes in the right shoulder and the uppermost part of the chest. The wound was consistent with a shotgun discharge, Mr Wright said. Detective Sergeant Callum Angus MacLeod said that he spoke to Roderick at Christchurch Hospital at 4.50 a.m. on April 23. He was conscious and spoke with difficulty. He viewed radiographs of Roderick and saw 27 small marks on the right shoulder, one in the centre of the chest and three to the right of the right eye socket, Sergeant MacLeod said.

Five young men have pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering Quentin Rumatiki Martin, aged 24, and of attempting to murder John Raymond Roderick, aged 29, in the early hours of April 23. They are Larry Thomas Geeson, aged 25, a self employed leather worker; Keith John Knight, aged 21, a process worker; Brian Selby Lundy, aged 23, a freezing worker; Mark Andrew Sutherland, aged 26,

a mechanic; and Russell John Keetley, aged 23, a meat grader. Messrs B. McClelland, Q.C., and B. M. Stanaway appear for the Crown; Mr K. N. Hampton for Geeson, Messrs P. H. B. Hall and J. Wood for Knight; Mr M. A. Bungay, of Wellington and Mrs P. D. Gibson for Lundy; Mr M. J. Glue and Miss I. M. Mitchell for Sutherland; and Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon and Mrs L. O. Smith, of Auckland, for Keetley.