Model tenant felt 'persecuted'

Rotorua man Grant William Milliken was a model tenant - clean, polite and quiet - until he stabbed his landlady to death last April.

The 31-year-old sickness beneficiary is on trial in the High Court at Rotorua charged with the murder of Joanna Monk and attempting to murder her husband, Philip Monk.

Defence lawyer Denise Clark is seeking a not-guilty verdict on the grounds of insanity. Milliken has been diagnosed as having chronic paranoid schizophrenia.

On April 11 last year he attacked the Monks with a knife after an argument over parking. He rented a unit on their property and was very protective of the portion of driveway which passed in front of his flat, sweeping and cleaning it every day. When the Monks' son, Andrew, parked there three days before the murder, the accused was enraged.

A bitter argument with Mrs Monk followed and Milliken felt "persecuted" when Mr Monk later brought him a letter summarising the argument and asking him to apologise. When Milliken went to deliver his letter of apology, he stabbed the couple. He told police a Te Arawa chief who talked to him in his head made him do it.

Milliken's mother, April Soper, told the court yesterday that he was "perfectly normal" until a traumatic head injury in 1990, when he became uptight, began to talk to himself, and started to believe he stood to inherit millions from his grandfather.

In 1993 a neuropsychiatrist found Milliken had persecutory delusions and in 1994 he was treated with medication. But treatment was unsuccessful because Milliken refused to co-operate, said Mrs Soper.

When Milliken went to stay with his family in Invercargill in 1997 he scared them with his "weird stories" and imaginary girlfriend.

"I found him one day in the shed with a knife. He reckoned knives were his friends ... I just had an awful feeling something would go wrong. I didn't think this would happen but I thought something horrible would happen."

Two months before the murder, Milliken complained to police about blackouts and rages and insisted he had an untreated sexually transmitted disease, although this was not true.

He believed a device had been implanted in his brain at birth and through this other people could control his actions, see through his eyes and hear through his ears. He thought it made him valuable to world powers.

Dr David Simpson, clinical director of Health Waikato's regional forensic psychiatric service, said that while Milliken was aware of his actions, he did not know that killing his landlady and attempting to kill her husband was morally wrong.

The trial is expected to end tomorrow.