Amber-Rose Rush of Dunedin was killed in February 2018. Photo / Facebook
Amber-Rose Rush of Dunedin was killed in February 2018. Photo / Facebook
A Dunedin doctor's girlfriend was expecting him to visit on the night he's accused of slashing a teen girl's throat.
Venod Skantha, 32, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 16-year-old Amber-Rose Rush, who was stabbed to death on February 2, 2018.
Skantha's girlfriend - a lawyer - toldthe court today she'd drawn up some paperwork he needed to sign and that he'd arranged to drive to her Balclutha home to meet her after he finished work.
Dr Venod Skantha on trial for the murder of Amber-Rose Rush in the Dunedin High Court. Photo / Otago Daily Times
But she says she didn't hear from him at all that Friday.
The woman says Skantha turned up to her house around 2.30am.
"He came into the bedroom by himself. Then he said he's got [the young man who claims he drove Skantha to Amber-Rose's house that night] with him because he didn't want to fall asleep while he was driving."
The next morning, she says, Skantha told her he wanted to have a bonfire that day.
There's CCTV footage of them buying kindling supplies and a large terracotta pot at the Warehouse.
Amber-Rose Rush was 16 when she was killed in her bed. Photo / Facebook
The Crown has accused Skantha of using these items to burn his bloody clothes.
The defence has argued that blood found in Skantha's car could've belonged to him.
Today his lawyer, Jonathan Eaton, revealed he went to the emergency room the day after the death - because he'd cut his finger.
Eaton says blood found in his house - on a sword and in the kitchen sink - was shown to belong to him.
Yesterday, the jury heard of a potential blackmail plot by Amber-Rose and her mother, and her final messages before her death.
Minutes before she was stabbed to death she messaged her older sister: "I'm so angry."
Amber-Rose's sister, Shantelle, only noticed the message on the morning of February 3, 2018.
She replied "why?", but, by that time, the teenager was lying dead in her blood-soaked bed after sustaining six wounds to her neck and throat.
Amber-Rose Rush sent a message to her sister minutes before she died. Photo / Supplied
The court heard Skantha was also messaging the victim on the night of her death.
Amber-Rose had accused him of indecently assaulting her and "touching up" others. She would go to the police and to Skantha's bosses at the hospital, she told him.
Amber-Rose's boyfriend, Kristin Clark, was also communicating with her on the night she died.
She sent screenshots of her heated exchange with Skantha and Clark said he was concerned she would confront the man.
