Wallace's print found on Birgit Brauer's diary

Michael Wallace

The fingerprints of murder accused Michael Scott Wallace were found on the sleeping bag and diary of German tourist Birgit Brauer, according to written evidence presented to New Plymouth District Court yesterday.

At the end of a depositions hearing before two Justices of the Peace, Wallace's lawyer, Susan Hughes, conceded a prima facie case had been established.

Wallace, 44, is charged with the kidnap and murder of 28-year-old Ms Brauer on September 20 last year. Her body was found beaten and stabbed at Lucys Gully, near Oakura, southwest of New Plymouth.

Much of the evidence on the final day of depositions was suppressed and written statements giving forensic evidence were presented to the court.

In one statement, police fingerprint officer Jayne Barlow said that she had identified fingerprints from a Toyota Hilux as being Wallace's and matched four fingerprints on a green sleeping bag owned by Ms Brauer. Her fingerprints were also found in the sleeping bag.

Her diary had one fingerprint on the back page that matched Wallace's print.

The court was earlier told that the diary was among items retrieved from a Nissan Safari found abandoned in Lake Rotokare, south Taranaki, on September 23.

In another statement, Sarah Cockerton of ESR wrote that five of 12 cigarette butts found at Cardiff near Stratford had DNA from Wallace.

DNA profiles obtained from a bloodstain found inside a vehicle partly matched Ms Brauer's DNA.

Alexander Ian Bishop told the court he had not seen Wallace for five or six years before he turned up at his home on September 16 last year.

Mr Bishop said he had received a call from his partner who then handed the phone over to Wallace.

"He said, 'It's Mike here'. I didn't recognise his voice. I asked him, 'What's going on?' And he said he had just come to visit me.

"I told him to stay there and I would be home in a couple of hours."

Mr Bishop said that Wallace's demeanour was "calm" when he saw him later that day at his home on State Highway 3 near Himatangi in Horowhenua.

During the evening the two men drank a few beers and talked of Maori myths and legends ... "about the old ways - Mike was mostly speaking in Maori", Mr Bishop said.

"I asked him what he was up to and Mike said, 'just cruising around visiting friends and family'."

The next morning Mr Bishop helped Wallace change a tyre on a Hilux that Wallace told him he had bought.

Shown a photograph of a Hilux in court, Mr Bishop said that the vehicle in the photograph looked different to Wallace's.

"Mike's vehicle was a lighter grey. His didn't have spotlights or mudflaps at the end of the vehicle," he said.

On September 17, Wallace left saying he was heading to New Plymouth to get some Maori potatoes.

Detective Sergeant Deborah Gower told the court that on October 9 she and Detective Ross Wright arrested Wallace and took him to the Levin police station.

JP Alex Matheson told Wallace he would be committed to trial in the High Court at New Plymouth, "unless you so desire to plead guilty to this charge?"

Wallace simply shook his head from side to side.

- NZPA