Teresa man 'had steel eyes'

By JO-MARIE BROWN

A man with "Charles Manson eyes" watched as 6-year-old Teresa Cormack dashed in front of a car the day she was raped and murdered, a witness says.

On the first day of a depositions hearing, Brianna Smith described driving down Napier's Riverbend Rd near Teresa's home in 1987 when the girl suddenly rushed out in front of her car.

"She was very pretty and she just walked out in front of me. It didn't make sense as to why a young child would walk out in front of a car."

Mrs Smith, a former National Insurance employee who now lives in Australia, told the hearing in the Napier District Court that a Rastafarian-looking man holding a schoolbag was with Teresa but made no attempt to hold her back as the car approached.

"I didn't expect that type of person to be with a child," Mrs Smith said. "The child looked well cared for, well looked after, and he was just like a street person with a child ... It didn't fit, the whole picture."

After Mrs Smith's car came to a halt, the man came forward, pulled the girl back off the road and continued along the footpath with her.

Mrs Smith said she phoned police when Teresa was reported missing and helped to draw up an Identikit picture.

She had described the man as a pale-skinned Maori, with long, unkempt hair and, although unsure about certain details, his eyes had particularly struck her.

"I knew there was something about the eyes. They were horrible. They were steel. They looked awful ... They are Charles Manson eyes," she said.

In cross-examination, Mrs Smith agreed with defence lawyer Peter Gill that she had not described the eyes as being like those of Charles Manson, a notorious 1960s Californian cult leader and mass killer, to police at the time.

The details were revealed yesterday at the depositions hearing to decide whether there is enough evidence to try Jules Pierre Nicholas Mikus, 43, for the abduction, sexual violation and murder of Teresa.

The little girl disappeared on June 19, 1987, on the way to school and her body was found buried in the sand on Whirinaki Beach, 16km north of her home, eight days later. She had been raped and suffocated.

In other evidence yesterday:

* Police revealed for the first time that Mikus was ruled out as a suspect in 1987 despite having given a blood sample to them one month after Teresa disappeared.

* A woman claimed Mikus told her he had committed a murder and got away with it.

* Mikus' former wife said she questioned him some days after Teresa's disappearance about sand she found in the house.

A police witness told the hearing that Mikus was a suspect for the murder but police believed he had a confirmed alibi for the morning of June 19 when Teresa was snatched off the street while walking to Richmond School.

A "suspect check sheet" subsequently compiled on Mikus by detectives in 1987 confirmed that he had visited Napier's Social Welfare Department offices at 9.30 that morning to arrange for an emergency benefit to pay his rent.

Former detective Barry Searle said police believed in 1987 that Teresa was abducted about 9am.

Once Mikus' alibi was confirmed, police wrote on his check sheet: "It tends to eliminate him from the inquiry".

Crown prosecutor Russell Collins said Teresa left home about 8.25am on June 19 - the day after her sixth birthday.

"For whatever reason, she had said before leaving for school that morning that she did not want to go to school that day."

Dressed in an oversized red raincoat, Teresa inexplicably took the long route to school. It was not known how close she actually came to the school gates before being abducted, Mr Collins said.

Mikus was interviewed by Mr Searle on July 9 and asked to account for his whereabouts the day Teresa disappeared.

Mikus said that after leaving Social Welfare at 10am, he "went straight home and did some washing and weeding around the house".

He was home alone during that time and returned to Social Welfare to collect a cheque at 1.30pm. He told Mr Searle he had never seen Teresa Cormack.

Mikus was also questioned about why he repainted his estranged wife's Vauxhall Viva stationwagon in the two weeks after Teresa's death.

"He said he'd planned to do this for some months because the previous job was so shabby but he'd only just got around to it," Mr Searle said.

The car was fingerprinted, searched and vacuumed by police and a search of Mikus' Napier home turned up a "negative result".

On July 20, Mikus was taken to a medical centre by police and asked to give blood and saliva samples.

Mr Searle said Mikus had been co-operative with police at the time.

Mr Collins said a further blood sample was taken when Mikus was arrested in February this year, but the specific details of the DNA evidence presented to the court were suppressed by Judge Mark Perkins.

Past and present Napier residents yesterday helped to reconstruct Teresa's last hours.

Witnesses recalled seeing a young girl walking around the Maraenui neighbourhood the morning Teresa was abducted.

Mikus' former wife, whose name was suppressed, also gave evidence yesterday. She had moved out of their Napier home with their young son just before Teresa vanished.

She had seen Mikus in the carpark outside the Social Welfare office on June 19 but "deliberately tried to avoid contact" and did not speak to him.

When the couple were reconciled on June 24, she noticed sand in their son's bedroom and asked Mikus where it came from.

He did not reply, but she agreed with defence lawyer Steve Gill that Mikus enjoyed surfcasting and Napier was a beach city.

The court also heard evidence from a Wellington woman with whom Mikus and his present partner stayed late last year.

The woman, whose name was also suppressed, recounted a conversation where Mikus allegedly said "he'd done a murder and got away with it".

Mr Gill accused the woman of being angry with Mikus for having called her son an idiot and a paedophile, and alleged that the conversation had not occurred.

The depositions hearing is expected to conclude today. Two more witnesses will give oral evidence and statements from a further 20 people will be presented to the court.