Lance Hall in the High Court at Whangārei where he's on trial for the murder of Jason McNae. Photo / NZME
The man accused of fatally stabbing father-of-two Jason McNae allegedly carried a knife with him on a regular basis and had threatened to stab his flatmate a week earlier.
Flatmate Cody Rudolph told a jury today that murder-accused Lance Hall would become aggressive when he was coming off methamphetamine and he felt intimidated by him.
“He always had a knife and stuff on him and when I noticed that, I took all the dangerous knives out of the kitchen and I hid them.”
The escalating tensions of the short-term living arrangement between the two men were revealed in the High Court at Whangārei today where Hall is accused of stabbing McNae in the neck with a pair of scissors on June 19, 2023.
The 24-year-old victim and three others went to the block of flats where Hall lived after receiving a call from Rudolph seeking help.
The court heard how Hall had been staying with a woman at the flats when things deteriorated in April 2023 he requested to move in with Rudolph.
Rudolph allowed the 51-year-old to stay however he said the arrangement was not working. Rudolph gave evidence of two alleged incidents leading up to the fatal stabbing.
In the first, he said Hall had punched him and exposed himself several weeks prior. Then a week after that there was another altercation in the flat after Rudolph made Hall breakfast and an argument ensued.
“I was washing out his plate and he threatened to stab me up. My instant thought was, cos I know he carries knives, ... I was unsure if he had a knife on him.”
Rudolph said Hall had been causing several issues around the building, particularly with females, and neighbours were beginning to complain.
On the evening of the stabbing, Rudolph said he had thrown the access card to the building down to Hall who was in the carpark however Hall began to make a scene that he could not find the card.
Rudolph said when he went downstairs, Hall hit him in the face but he knew he had the access card.
Rudolph said he called his ex-partner, Courtney Rapata, to ask for a cousin’s phone number for assistance.
The court earlier heard how Rapata was in a relationship with McNae and they drove to the flats with two others and arrived to see Hall in the carpark jumping around aggressively.
Under cross-examination by Hall’s lawyer, Ron Mansfield KC, Rudolph said today that he never asked for Rapata’s family to come down.
“I had met Jason a number of times and he was a lovely, humble guy but I didn’t know he was going to come down.
“I didn’t know who was coming down. I didn’t tell them to bring down the boys or anything like that.”
Mansfield put to Rudolph that he had put in a request for a bunch of males to come down and deal to Hall.
“No, what I wanted was Lance to be removed from my house.”
“I suggest you wanted him to be beaten up?” Mansfield asked.
“No, I did not want him to be beaten up.”
Mansfield referred to Rudolph’s police statement taken days after the stabbing which stated Hall had pulled out a knife during the “kitchen incident” and that Rudolph was lying in an attempt to make Hall look bad.
Rudolph admitted his statement was incorrect because of the trauma he was going through following the incident but maintained, that it was not an attempt to make Hall look bad.
“He said ‘I’ll f****** stab you up,” Rudolph said.
The Crown says after arriving at the flats McNae, Rapata and another person they were with went upstairs to check on Rudolph and Hall followed them. He then allegedly turned and stabbed McNae, who was behind him, in the neck.
Rapata gave evidence saying Hall then allegedly said “You better come help him or he’s going to die” as she turned and saw a pair of scissors in his hand.
However, the defence claim Hall was beaten up by the group in an area of the stairs where no CCTV was captured and Hall was acting in self-defence.
Rudolph said it looked like they were having a civil conversation.
“It looked like Jason was trying to calm Lance down and that’s when I came through and grabbed the card out of Lance’s hand. Everything looked calm,” Rudolph said.
However, as the group filed up the stairs, CCTV captured Hall turning around towards McNae and launching a right fist at his neck.
Mansfield put it to Rudolph that when McNae collapsed on the ground outside, Hall was checking he was okay.
However, Rudolph insisted “He was trying to stab Jase again.”
CCTV also showed McNae making his way down the stairwell after he was injured and going outside where members of the public assisted him as he collapsed on the ground. He died in hospital.
The trial continues before Justice Grant Powell.
Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.
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