Anna Browne appears in the dock in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Peter Meecham
Anna Browne appears in the dock in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Peter Meecham
Steve Braunias is reporting daily from the murder trial of Anna Browne, who stabbed a friend at a "pamper party" last year in Te Atatu South.
Police notebooks contain some of the strangest and strongest dialogue in New Zealand literature. Someone should publish them. Here's a start; everything said inthe following story is taken from the notebooks presented by cops and detectives at the High Court of Auckland today, during the trial of Anna Browne, 36, charged with the murder of Carly Stewart on Saturday, October 15 last year at a house in Te Atatu South, west Auckland.
The cops at Henderson police station got a call at 4:02pm to attend a reported stabbing. They drove to 47 School Rd and arrived at 4:09pm. There were three women at the front of the property yelling at a woman standing closest to the street.
One of the women pointed at her, and said to the cops: "She's the one that did it. This b****, right here."
Anna Browne was handcuffed and driven to Henderson police station. She said in the car, "I didn't do nothing".
She said, "Where's my cuzzie? What happened to my cuzzie? I don't know what happened. I done nothing wrong. Where's my cuzzie? Where's my cuzzie? Where's my cuzzie?"
She meant Carly Stewart, who she is accused of stabbing in the face with a kitchen knife. Stewart died in the house.
Carly Stewart was fatally stabbed at a pamper party in Te Atatu in October 2016.
The car turned the roundabout on Alderman Drive to the Henderson station, and Browne began thrashing around in the back seat, screaming and yelling. She continued to scream and yell for the next hour in custody: "I didn't do nothing. Where's my cuzzie?"
She was arrested and charged with murder. Browne is pleading not guilty. Her lawyer, Marie Dyhrberg, QC, said in her opening address last week that Browne did not have murderous intent when she plunged the knife into her friend's face.
She said at Henderson police station, "Are you saying I did it?"
A detective said, "The finger points at you".
She said, "All we were doing was drinking, then something happened and I woke up here."
She had been placed in a suicide gown - a white smock that couldn't be torn. There are photos of her wearing it in the prosecution's photo book. Her hair is long and straight, and her arms and legs are bare. She said, "Why am I in this shit garment?"
She said, "Are people saying I did it, that I stabbed her up?"
Again, the detective said, "The finger points at you".
Police guard the scene in Te Atatu, west Auckland. Photo / Greg Bowker
She said, "It's bullshit. Why did I attack her? Why did I do that to her? What do they say? I didn't do shit."
She said, "Where's Ems?" She meant Emmanuelle Sinclair, who hosted the afternoon party at 47 School Road. "I want her to tell me what happened."
She said, "They're all friends. I'm the only outsider. What did I do? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me."
The cops wrote in their notebooks that she smelled of alcohol. They noted that it took seven officers to hold her down in custody. They noted that she grabbed at her hair and tried to climb the walls, that her mood went from happy to sad to angry, that she wouldn't sit still, that she talked about another person being with her in the cell, that her pupils rolled back and forth so all they could see the whites of her eyes.
