Police appealed to Travis Burns to get the Joanne McCarthy murder "off his conscience," a jury heard yesterday.
During a 90-minute videotaped interview at the Takapuna police station on March 12 last year, former Detective Sergeant Dave Ellis and Detective Scott Armstrong urged Burns to own up to the killing.
But Burns has maintained throughout that he had nothing to do with it.
Burns, aged 32, of Titirangi, is accused of murdering the 33-year-old kindergarten teacher with a hammer and dumping her body in a bath of water at her home in Little Manly on November 12, 1998.
Joanne McCarthy's 11-month-old son, Marcus, and another infant she was looking after were splashed with blood.
The video of the interview was shown to the jury in the High Court at Auckland yesterday. In the early part of the interview, Burns said he had been planting cannabis seedlings in Puhoi on the morning of the killing before going to Milford and then on to Mission Bay and St Heliers.
In St Heliers he thought about "walking into a bank and handing over a note saying, 'Give me all your money, please'," but added: "It was just a thought, that's all."
He told the officers that in the middle of 1998 he had lived for a month or two in Zealandia Rd, which is just around the corner from Joanne McCarthy's home. But he had never seen her nor been to her house.
Later in the interview the officers said that they had "damning and irrefutable" DNA evidence linking Burns to the crime.
They asked Burns for an explanation but he replied: "She didn't scratch me, because I wasn't there for her to scratch me. Is this sort of DNA stuff checked and double-checked and triple-checked?"
The officers persisted in trying to get Burns to admit to the killing in the face of the DNA evidence.
"What does your conscience say?" Detective Sergeant Ellis asked.
And later: "I don't know what appeals to you, but maybe, if nothing else, you could at least do something for the family.
"Two little babies were there that day and saw it all, didn't they? It happened right in front of them."
Detective Armstrong chimed in: "You can't be that cold-hearted that you have not thought about that sort of stuff."
Burns repeatedly said he had not been at the house.
Earlier in the interview Burns said he bought a first-aid kit in the St Heliers area "in case he stubbed his toe or something like that."
He denied having any injuries that day.
Detective Sergeant Ellis commented that it seemed a bizarre thing to do "out of the blue, without any reason."
Earlier, Dr Peter Boot, who examined Burns for the police in March last year, told the jury that a 17cm scratch on Burns' abdomen was three to nine months old.
But, cross-examined by defence counsel Barry Hart, Dr Boot agreed that in his original brief he had said he was unable to determine the age of the scratch, except to say it was not recent.
Dr Boot said that since carrying out the examination he had been able to look at "beautiful" photographs and close-ups of the wound.
He had also gone back to pathology texts and reflected on the healing, so he was now better able to discuss the scratches than at the time of the examination.
The trial, before Justice Chambers, continues on Monday.
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