Fourth person charged over Drain Rd death

Police scour the area on Drain Rd near where the body of Marcus Luke Tucker was found at Lake Ellesmere. Photo / Kurt Bayer

A fourth person has now been charged in connection with the case of alleged murder victim Marcus Luke Tucker whose badly bashed body was found burned and dumped by a Canterbury lake last month.

Peter John Carroll, 51, of Bishopdale, Christchurch appeared in court last week charged with the April 24 murder of Tucker.

Carroll was remanded in custody to next appear in the High Court at Christchurch on May 20.

This morning, George Perry Waata, 51, appeared from custody at Christchurch District Court.

He is accused of jointly offending with Carroll to assault Tucker with an intent to injure him on April 24.

Waata was remanded in custody until May 26. No application for bail was made today.

Anthony Richard Dawson, a 28-year-old supervisor from Leeston, appeared in court last weekend charged that on April 24, at Leeston, knowing that a murder had been committed, he helped Carroll by actively suppressing evidence to help him avoid arrest.

Dawson is also facing charges of trying to smuggle methamphetamine, ecstasy, and the party drug Gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL), through Auckland International Airport earlier this year.

Dawson, and a 31-year-old woman with interim name suppression, who has been charged with conspiring with Carroll to assault Tucker and also with being an accessory after the fact to murder, have also, at the High Court, been remanded to May 20.

The body of Mr Tucker, 36, was found dumped near Lake Ellesmere on Drain Rd, Doyleston on Anzac Day.

He was severely assaulted before his body was burned and then reportedly wrapped in some material, police say.

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