Blessie Gotingco deliberately run down - Crown

This is the man accused of murdering Blessie Gotingco. Photo / Sarah Ivey

After running down Blessie Gotingco in his car and breaking her leg, her alleged killer threw her into the vehicle and drove her to his home nearby where he raped her then stabbed her to death, the Crown says.

The trial for the 27-year-old man accused of her murder - who has name suppression but whose image is allowed to be published - began in the High Court at Auckland today.

Mrs Gotingco, a 56-year-old mother of three, was last seen leaving her workplace, Tower Insurance in the CBD, about 7pm on May 24 last year.

She would have got a lift home from a friend but she volunteered to do some overtime which meant she had to take a bus from lower Albert St to Birkdale Rd.

Crown prosecutor Michael Walker said she was making the five-minute walk home when the defendant deliberately drove over the kerb, onto the footpath and deliberately ran her down.

Mr Walker said the impact of the defendant's car broke her left leg in two places and caused significant damage to his bonnet and windscreen.

The man scooped up the injured woman, put her in his vehicle and made the short drive home.

"He parked the car in the downstairs garage of the apartment complex he lived in and after arriving at his house he raped Mrs Gotingco," Mr Walker said.

"He ran her down in his car, abducted her and raped her, then he set about attacking her."

It is alleged the defendant slit the victim's throat and then stabbed her numerous times.

According to the Crown, the following morning -- 10 hours after Mrs Gotingco was hit by the car -- the accused wrapped her body in his bed sheets and dumped her in a scrub area of Eskdale Cemetry.

Police investigations led them to the defendant, who was being monitored via a GPS anklet at the time.

They found he had made a trip to the cemetery only hours before the alleged attack before returning early the next morning.

"Why's that important?" Mr Walker asked.

"It shows the defendant was planning to kill someone. His trip to the cemetery was scoping out where to dump the body."

Mrs Gotingco's family were immediately concerned when she did not return home on the night of May 24.

In the early hours of the following day her daughter Bessie, who is expected to give evidence tomorrow, tracked her phone using a GPS application to the spot on Salisbury Rd where the alleged collision initially took place.

There she found her mother's lunchbox, phone and other personal items, and police were immediately alerted.

Almost two days after her disappearance, police found Mrs Gotingco's body in Eskdale Cemetery -- the spot visited twice by the defendant, according to the Crown.

When the police went to the defendant's address they found a knife, testing of which allegedly showed traces of the victim's blood.

The Crown said a number of her personal items, such as her handbag, were also found buried in the suspect's garden.

Bloodied towels and mop heads were found in a wheelie bin too, Mr Walker said.

A swab taken from the victim's body turned up a semen sample, which was later tested by ESR scientists.

Mr Walker said it provided "extremely strong scientific support" to suggest the defendant had raped Mrs Gotingco.

The defendant's lawyer Chris Wilkinson-Smith will open the defence case tomorrow.

The trial, before Justice Timothy Brewer and a jury of seven men and five women, is scheduled to last three weeks.