KEY POINTS:
At the time German backpacker Birgit Brauer was being murdered the man police say killed her was elsewhere picnicking on magic mushrooms, his lawyer said this afternoon.
Michael Scott Wallace has been on trial in the High Court at New Plymouth charged with murdering the 28-year-old at Lucy's
Gully, southwest of New Plymouth, on September 20, 2005.
The 46-year-old is denying the charges.
In her closing address to the jury defence counsel Susan Hughes QC said there was no unequivocal evidence which pointed to Wallace being guilty.
"He is the victim of a coincidence."
Ms Hughes said the crown had likened the case to a jigsaw puzzle and she said to complete that puzzle there needed to be four corners in place to set a framework - the vehicle, the place, the weapon and the timing.
On the timing issue she said defence witness Richard Baird saw Ms Brauer at Oakura around 3pm and at this time Wallace was in Oakura where witnesses said he appeared to be having a picnic.
He was in fact consuming magic mushrooms he'd gathered.
She said if Wallace had killed Ms Brauer it would be common sense to get as far away from the scene as possible, not go to a place 45 minutes drive away and chat to people.
"You would seek to be inconspicuous, you would seek to be invisible."
She suggested Wallace, who was a bit of a "gypsy" came across Ms Brauer's belongings later after they'd been dumped by her attacker at Lake Rotokare and rummaged through them like a "magpie", leaving a fingerprint on Ms Brauer's address book.
As to Lucy's Gully Ms Hughes said nobody who was familiar with the place - as Wallace was - would go there expecting to carry out an uninterrupted rape or attack as it was busy and popular.
In just a ten minute period on September 20 the court was told of three vehicles being there.
"Not the place to beat someone insensible on the roadway".
Ms Hughes said things Wallace said to police could be seen as "the ramblings of a stoner, coming down off a bender".
He had been roaming around getting magic mushrooms, which was illegal, and ran from the police when he heard he was a murder suspect.
"At no time did he admit that he was the murderer".
Earlier, Crown prosecutor Tim Brewer said jurors must answer one fundamental question: was it Michael Scott Wallace who murdered German backpacker Birgit Brauer.
Mr Brewer said the case against Wallace could be broken into four categories: sightings of the accused in the Taranaki region, the grouping of Miss Brauer's belongings, scientific evidence against Wallace, and what he allegedly told police after his arrest.
No piece of evidence, in isolation, was enough to convict Wallace, but the "totality" of the evidence could.
"All the evidence that has been given to you, you might think, has been given to you by honest people doing their best to remember events that didn't seem particularly important to them at the time, but which they were asked to remember later.
"Memories of that sort will inevitably have fuzzy edges."
Mr Brewer said blood on the road at Lucy's Gully showed Wallace had attacked Miss Brauer at the roadside, then dragged her, still alive, into the bush.
The injuries inflicted on the side of the road would in themselves have been fatal, the jury heard earlier in the trial.
Mr Brewer said Wallace stabbed Miss Brauer once through the heart after he was disturbed by the sound of New Plymouth man Colin Boon's vehicle at Lucy's Gully.
Mr Boon told the court in the first week of trial that he saw a vehicle matching that driven by Wallace around the time police say Miss Brauer was killed.
Mr Brewer told the court Wallace had been spotted at Cardiff, near Stratford, in the hours after the killing and an iron bar allegedly used to bash Miss Brauer was found in the area.
An iron bar of the same type was "associated" with Wallace's Toyota Hilux Surf vehicle, Mr Brewer told the court.
However, for the defence, Ms Hughes said there was nothing linking it to Wallace or his vehicle.
"There are thousands of these bars," she said.
She said there was no forensic evidence linking Ms Brauer to the vehicle - no blood, no fingerprints, no hair and no fibres - and the logical explanation was that she had never been in it.
As none of Ms Brauer's blood was in the vehicle Wallace could not have attacked her elsewhere then taken her there, Ms Hughes said.
Other of Miss Brauer's belongings were found at Cardiff, including her cellphone battery.
Records show a final text message was sent to her phone about 4.08pm, hours after her death.
That message was routed through the cell phone transmitter near Cardiff, the court heard.
The telephone was dismantled at 5.37pm on September 20, Mr Brewer said.
Witnesses gave evidence of seeing a vehicle matching Wallace's in the area about the same time.
"The killer dismantled that phone. He did so behind the pump shed at Cardiff. Whose Toyota Hilux Surf was backed up against the pump shed at that time? It was the accused," Mr Brewer said.
Ms Hughes questioned the witness sightings and reminded the jury at the time of the killing there were more than 9000 Toyota Hiluxs matching its general description on New Zealand roads.
She said the witnesses were honest, but were honestly mistaken.
Justice Mark Cooper will sum up the case for the jury tomorrow before it retires to consider its verdict.
- With NZPA
