Cold case murder trial: Jurors told of Russell Allison's final moments

The remains of 290 Whatatutu Road, Puha, after a fire that razed the house to the ground and in which owner Ronald Russell Allison died in the early hours of January 25, 2013. Picture supplied.

A jury has been told how the remains of Russell Allison’s body were found after a fire razed his wooden Whatatutu farmhouse to the ground during the early hours of January 25, 2013. He appeared to have been overcome by the blaze while trying to get out of bed to his walking frame.

John Simpson, chief of Te Karaka’s voluntary fire brigade for the past 22 years, was the Crown’s first witness in its case against Russell’s daughter — Lynne Marie Martin, 63 — who is charged with her father’s murder. Her jury trial started in the High Court at Gisborne on Monday.

Mr Simpson said the brigade arrived at Russell’s isolated house at 290 Whatatutu Road about five minutes after being alerted to the fire by comm’s centre staff at 2.29am.

As the crew approached the property, they could see the house was already gone — all that remained aglow in the embers was a brick chimney.

They found Russell’s remains under fallen roofing iron, lying face up across the springs of what would have been his bedroom mattress. An ESR scientist involved in the scene investigation, believed this was consistent with Mr Russell having been overcome by the fire as he was trying to get out of bed. 

The Crown alleges Martin travelled from her home in Tauranga to Whatatutu on January 24, 2013, intent on deliberately burning her father’s house down with him in it. An undischarged bankrupt with bills to pay, she was motivated by her need for money and wanted to get $150,000 she knew she stood to inherit.

Simpson said he spoke with Russell’s son John at the property soon after the brigade arrived. John told him how he had helped his frail 88-year-old father into bed about 10.30pm that night — as he routinely did — and gave him his usual medication, which included a sleeping pill. Before his father drifted off to sleep, he told John about a "disturbing" phone call from Martin earlier that day, in which he had refused to give her his boat and had hung up on her.

John said he told his father they'd need to step up security at the house. He stayed there a while to watch TV before leaving at about 12.30am. He was in bed himself when he received a call about a fire at his father's. 

He went to the property immediately and told fire service staff his father would've have been inside. The fire service found Russell's remains in his bedroom.

Detective Senior Sergeant Tina Smallman, who was the officer in charge of a scene investigation that took four days, walked jurors through hundreds of photos of the blackened fire scene, images of how the house looked before it burned down, and forensic maps. There was nothing left of the wooden house except for its chimney, concrete foundations, and burnt roofing iron. 

She and ESR scientists had raked carefully through the debris from the fire, searching for evidence. They had also taken samples to test for accelerants that might have been used to start the fire. Later test results showed there were none.

Det Sr Sgt Smallman said she and the two scientists spent “hours and hours” in what had been Russell’s bedroom.

His remains were lying on would have been his mattress.

His torso was lying across the springs with his legs facing towards a walking frame he kept between the bed and an outside wall. Glass from a window had melted onto his leg bones. 

Metal parts of a monkey bar Russell used to haul himself out of bed and a commode he used during the night, were among the wreckage.

The metal detection chamber of what remained of the smoke detector in his bedroom was also on the ground.

A front door key, previously kept outside in a water tank shed, was never found.

The detective also gave evidence about police attempts to contact Martin after the fire to inform her of her father’s death. They tried her home in Welcome Bay, Tauranga, but were told by her partner she was at a work event with a colleague at Auckland’s Sky Casino hotel.

An officer who went to Sky City, discovered Martin had lied.

Martin and her husband went to the Tauranga Police Station at about 10.30am that morning (January 25) where she was formally told of her father's death. Det Sr Sgt Smallman said she later received a phone call from Martin wanting to know about the fire. The detective tried to refer her to a colleague but not before Martin asked, “Can you tell me if he suffered?”

Further in evidence, Det Sr Sgt Smallman spoke about phoning Clarence Collier, the Kanakanaia man who had phoned emergency services to alert them to the fire. He hadn’t actually seen the fire himself but had been told about it by two nephews who claimed to have noticed it while driving past. When Det Sr Sgt Smallman asked Collier how he knew about the fire, he said, “I’d like to keep that quiet”.

Det Sr Sgt Smallman also told the jury that police had later seized Martin’s car from her house but found nothing remarkable about it.

The Crown claims a host of circumstantial evidence supports its theory that Martin murdered her father by entering his house while he was asleep and deliberately leaving a pot of oil to catch fire on a stove. Martin felt justified in the killing, because she alleged her father and brother had sexually abused her. She had tried to blackmail them with those allegations. Police investigated but no charges were laid - either against the men or Martin for blackmail. 

Prosecutors Clayton Walker and Steve Manning plan to call 50 witnesses to give evidence, including about the movements of Martin’s car at the time in question, cell phone polling, recorded conversations and her discussions with an undercover policewoman tasked with befriending her. 

They have also been allowed to introduce evidence of Martin's previous convictions in Australia, which they say show her propensity for arson when faced with difficult financial and relationship issues. 

However, defence counsel Rachael Adams and Ben Smith told the jury there was no definitive evidence linking Martin to the fire. Police were fixated on targeting her from the start and ignored the possibility others could have been responsible, or that the fire was simply a terrible incident, which Russell himself might have caused.

Ms Adams said other potential suspects were John Allison, two young gang associates who were first to see the fire but delayed their reporting of it, and man who lived in a house bus on Russell's property. 

Cross-examining the fire chief, Mr Smith had him confirm he wasn’t sure what time John Allison had arrived at the house after the brigade. In court he’d said it was 20 minutes later, but he agreed his formal police statement of 10 years ago was probably more accurate. In it, he’d said he first noticed John about seven minutes after arriving at the property.

Former ESR scientist David Neale gave evidence via UV-link from the UK where he is now chief scientific advisor to the London fire brigade and other fire services. He believed the fire started in the centre of the house, entered the roof space and spread rapidly, burning downwards into the rooms below and overcoming Russell as he had tried to get out of bed. 

He couldn't pinpoint an exact point of origin of the fire. He couldn’t eliminate it being caused by an electrical fault or if it was started in the pot on the stove. The amount of damage to the house could have destroyed any pattern of human involvement or other cause of the fire. 

The trial is expected to take up to five weeks. 

Justice Helen Cull is presiding.