KEY POINTS:
The motorist suspected of driving his vehicle into two other cars and killing newlywed Katie Powles visited a bottle shop three times on the day of the accident.
Powles, 26, suffered multiple injuries and died on the way to hospital on Tuesday night after a three-car crash at
Karaka which police believe was caused by Tony Worrell, 51.
The unemployed Swanson man, a known alcoholic, survived the crash and last night was still in Auckland Hospital with moderate head injuries.
Powles will be laid to rest today.
Police upgraded the case from a road accident to a homicide inquiry after reports Worrell was suicidal on the day of the crash.
Earlier that day he had been released from hospital after being treated for an undisclosed medical condition and was seen driving erratically around South Auckland.
Today the Herald on Sunday can reveal that on the day of the crash Worrell visited a bottle shop in West Auckland three times - once in the morning, once in the afternoon and then about 6pm, an hour before the crash - where he bought ready-to-drink (RTD) premix drinks as well as several bottles of beer.
Staff at the bottle shop could not say exactly how much alcohol he bought during the day but they believed all up it may have been at least a dozen bottles.
They could not recall him acting in an erratic manner on the day of the crash but confirmed he was a regular who bought alcohol there at least three or four times a week.
He would usually buy alcohol, go away and drink it, then come back later in the day for more, staff said.
"He'd always just buy little amounts at a time mostly VBs [Victorian Bitter]," a staff member said.
Staff at Caltex Karaka also confirmed that they served Worrell just before the crash and were concerned enough about his behaviour to telephone police.
"He was all over the place he was looking unsteady. He just didn't seem quite there," said Sheryll Sandford.
"We were pretty sure he was drunk. We haven't come across anyone like that before.
"You usually don't get people who are hammered on a Tuesday night."
Sandford said when she was speaking to police about Worrell she asked whether she should try and take his keys from him but was warned against doing so.
"We didn't know what he was going to do. It was just me and a teenage boy working. We didn't have anything sufficient to cope with if he came out swinging at us," she said.
"We just took one look at him and thought, 'This guy needs to sleep it off in a police cell or something'.
"He spoke clearly but he would have long thinking gaps, so he was trying to speak but the words wouldn't come out."
Sandford said her main concern was that Worrell might "start hitting out" or "suddenly become violent. Both of us knew something wasn't quite right and something had to be done."
When she heard news of the crash, Sandford said she was shocked to the core. "I was just devastated. It is absolutely awful. I mean, that was the one thing I was trying to stop."
Powles' father-in-law Lew Powles yesterday spoke about the trauma of losing his daughter-in-law, who he said was a "beautiful" girl who was "so in love" with his son Darren.
"He [Darren] is totally gutted, that would be the words for it. He collapsed, that would be a better description - you know, internally he's collapsed," Powles said.
"He came home from work. He was on the five to 11pm shift and was expecting his wife to be home, but she wasn't there."
Police say they will be interviewing Worrell in the next few days and say it is likely he will face serious charges.
