RSA murder accused had cigarettes, cash, court told

The former girlfriend of triple-murder accused William Dwayne Bell told a jury yesterday of seeing him and co-accused Darnell Kere Tupe with three cartons of cigarettes soon after the robbery of the Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA.

Esther Harriman, of Manurewa, told a jury in the High Court at Auckland that she asked Bell where the cigarettes came from and he told her, "Don't worry about it."

Tupe, who was with him, "winked at me", she said.

Asked by Auckland Crown Solicitor Simon Moore if the pair said what they had been up to, Ms Harriman replied: "They just kept saying, 'Don't worry about it'."

Two days later, she said, Bell paid about $280 cash for clothes for her and himself.

Asked where he got the money, she said: "I just thought he worked."

During that week, they dined on takeaways, paid for by Bell.

Ms Harriman told Bell's lawyer, Ian Tucker, that she had not seen Bell with large amounts of money.

She told Tupe's lawyer, Mark Edgar, that Bell spent money on her even before the RSA robbery.

Earlier, Ms Harriman said that in a telephone call in the early hours before the robbery Bell appeared drunk.

The jury heard from several people who saw a blue Commodore car parked behind the RSA building about 8am on the morning of the robbery, December 8 last year, with one person in the front of the vehicle.

Shown a photo of Bell's car, Yong Xu, who runs a nearby clothes factory, said it looked very similar. Mr Xu said that because the car was parked there for quite some time, he went over to ask if there was anything wrong.

He said the man, a slim Maori or Islander in his 20s, said the car had an electrical fault and he had called the Automobile Association.

Bell, 24, and Tupe, 23, have pleaded not guilty to joint charges of murdering Wayne Johnson, Mary Hobson and Bill Absolum on December 8 last year.

They are also charged with the attempted murder of Susan Couch and the aggravated robbery of Ms Couch and the Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA of cigarettes and cash.

Bell faces an additional charge of stealing $4800 from the St George Tavern in Papatoetoe on or about last December 1.