Trinity Oliver's body was found at a South Auckland address on the afternoon of Sept 11, 2021. Video / Hayden Woodward
At the same time as 16-year-old Trinity Oliver was believed to have been strangled — in the middle of the night during Auckland’s strict 2021 Covid-19 lockdown, near an otherwise abandoned South Auckland train station — CCTV cameras were filming.
Jurors reviewed the footage today as the murder trial ofVikhil Krishna, 24, continued in the High Court at Auckland.
But they were likely left with many questions unanswered.
The 37-minute clip showed a white 1999-model Toyota sedan, purported to be Krishna’s, pulling over near the Homai train station in Manurewa at 2.19am on September 11, 2021.
Footage showed the vacant outdoor platform wet with rain in the foreground, but the car itself was indistinguishable in the dark background for most of the time it was parked. On two brief occasions, jurors could see indications that the car was still parked in the darkness — once when a turn signal was turned on for about 10 seconds, followed later by a series of flashes that prosecutors said matched timestamps of photos of sex acts later found on Krishna’s phone.
Sixteen-year-old Trinity Oliver was found dead near a Manurewa train station in September 2021. Photo / Supplied
The car was seen leaving the area, somewhat erratically driving over a grass berm, at 2.57 that morning.
Seven minutes later, another camera filmed him stepping outside his car near the entrance of a Mobil petrol station in Puhinui.
“It appears he’s not wearing trousers or pants,” Detective Jordan Brown testified today as jurors watched that footage as well. “The defendant .... behaves unusually.”
The footage, from a street camera and from the petrol station’s camera, depicted a much closer view of the defendant and his car than at the train station. It showed that Oliver was no longer with him.
Krishna’s lawyers began his murder trial yesterday by acknowledging to jurors that he was responsible for the teen’s death and suggesting he should probably be found guilty of manslaughter. But he shouldn’t be found guilty of murder because he never had any intention to kill her, said Ron Mansfield, KC.
Vikhil Krishna appears in the Auckland High Court, accused of having murdered 16-year-old Trinity Oliver in September 2021. Photo / Jason Oxenham
With Krishna’s mind muddled by methamphetamine, it didn’t even occur to the defendant his actions might lead to Oliver’s death, his lawyer said.
But Crown prosecutors Yasmin OIsen and Natalie Walker said the savage beating that Oliver appears to have endured prior to her death indicated an intent to kill. To cause someone’s death via neck compression takes minutes, not seconds, they pointed out.
The teen’s body would be found near the train station about 13 hours after the white Toyota sedan was recorded driving away from the area.
Police would later watch those 13 additional hours of footage, and no other suspicious activity was noticed prior to the grisly discovery, Brown testified.
“Some cars travelled on the road, but no one appears to have gotten out of their vehicle and approached the body,” he said.
The trial, before Justice Peter Andrew, is set to resume tomorrow.
