Slain man was not burglar, court told

The people who allegedly killed Dean Fuller-Sandys got the wrong man, a jury in the High Court at Auckland heard yesterday.

The Crown said Gail Maney ordered a hit on Mr Fuller-Sandys because she believed he burgled her home in Larnoch Rd, Henderson, and stole her drugs. But another man, Frans Paki, might well have been the burglar.

Maney, aged 31, is charged along with Steven Stone, 29, with murdering Mr Fuller-Sandys. Stone also denies the rape and murder of prostitute Leah Stephens five days later on August 26, 1989, allegedly because she knew too much and was getting "mouthy."

Maney is also accused with her brother, Colin Neil Maney, 27, and Mark William Henrikson, 32, of disposing of Mr Fuller-Sandys' body.

Kathryn Salle, a next-door neighbour of Gail Maney, told the jury she had seen a male friend of Gail Maney's breaking into her home and later gave Gail Maney and two female friends a general description of the burglar.

Mrs Salle said the women "seemed to know who the guy was."

But years later, when the disappearance of Mr Fuller-Sandys became a homicide inquiry and the police showed her photographs of men who had visited the house,

Mrs Salle identified Frans Paki as the person she saw break in.

Mrs Salle said the burglary happened shortly after she moved into her new home in July 1989. But defence lawyers Paul Trehey, Adam Couchman, Mark Edgar and Jonathan Wiles suggested that the sewerage and power were not connected until October - yet the killing took place in August.

For many years it was thought Mr Fuller-Sandys drowned at Whatipu beach but his disappearance became a murder inquiry because of Colin Maney's "big-noting."

His boss, David Arnott, who at one stage lived with a woman who saw Mr Fuller-Sandys being killed, said that at first he thought it was just a "kid trying to act tough."

But later when his partner, who has name suppression, also started to talk about the killing, he thought: "What am I mixing up with here?"

Mr Arnott said Colin Maney had told him that Stone had done the killing, although he did not name anyone else involved or say who the victim was.

One of the women who was with Gail Maney when she asked her neighbour about the burglary told the court of being present when Mr Fuller-Sandys was killed.

She told how Gail Maney confronted Mr Fuller-Sandys about the burglary but refused to accept his denials.

The woman, now 27, who said that she had once slept with Mr Fuller-Sandys, said Gail Maney asked her to bring him to the house to ask him about the burglary.

She said there was a big confrontation, with angry accusations from Gail Maney and Stone.

During the argument, she said, Leah Stephens arrived with two men, now crown witnesses with name suppression.

The witness said Stone pulled a handgun and shot Mr Fuller-Sandys more than once and then handed it over for Colin Maney, Henrikson and the two other men to fire into Mr Fuller-Sandys' body.

The woman said she was told to help put the body in the boot of a car and the men drove off.

Cross-examined by Mr Trehey, one of Stone's lawyers, the woman agreed that she had given a number of versions of what had happened. Much of 1989 was a drug and alcohol-induced haze, working in parlours and as a prostitute on the street.

The trial before Justice Williams continues today.