A man has admitted shooting dead Wanganui woman Nadine Timmins in June last year.
Karl James Copley Lane, 30, changed his plea to guilty during a pre-trial hearing in Wanganui District Court yesterday.
Lane had been committed to trial after a depositions hearing in October last year.
The Wanganui Chronicle
reported he will be sentenced on September 23 on murder and kidnapping charges.
Lane was accused of shooting Ms Timmins, a mother of two, in the head with a pistol as they sat in a car parked in Kowhai Street, Wanganui, late on June 28 last year.
Three other people had also travelled to Kowhai St in the vehicle.
Police had alleged the driver, one of the women, pulled up in Kowhai St, where she and a second woman got out to use a toilet.
While they waited, police alleged that Lane asked Ms Timmins a question and, when she replied, he called her a liar and shot her in the left temple.
Lane had then allegedly driven around for a while before driving to Keith St, where he parked the vehicle, leaving it locked with Ms Timmins in the back seat.
Ms Timmins was later found alive in the car after a police patrol discovered the vehicle. She died soon after in Wanganui Hospital's critical care unit from a gunshot wound to her head.
Lane was found at a Turangi camping area two days later.
He was subsequently charged with murder, two counts of kidnapping, commission of a crime with a firearm and unlawful possession of a firearm.
At yesterday's pre-trial hearing Lane pleaded guilty to the murder and kidnapping charges. The two firearms charges were dismissed.
- NZPA
