Drug dealer Jay Christopher Lingman murdered Denver Chance in 2019. Photo / RNZ
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A murderer who shot his victim three times in the head then chopped up his corpse with a chainsaw and put it in a freezer has lost his appeal against conviction.
Jay Christopher Lingman and his victim, Denver Chance, were both drug dealers.
Lingman was found guilty of murdering Chance after a jury trial in the High Court at Auckland in 2021.
That trial was told that on February 24, 2019, Chance arrived unannounced at Lingman’s rural property near Auckland.
Lingman fired six shots from a Ruger .22 semi-automatic rifle, three of which hit Chance in the head, killing him.
The following day, Lingman bought a large chest freezer, and severed the legs from Chance’s body with a chainsaw so it would fit inside. He then obtained a shipping container and used it to hide Chance’s car.
After Chance was reported missing by his flatmate, police used his phone location data to trace him to Lingman’s property, where they noticed a strong smell of bleach and evidence of water-blasting near the front door.
Officers also noticed blood on the handle of the freezer, which was in a shed, and opened it to find Chance’s body.
They also found Chance’s car, drugs, a number of firearms and the chainsaw with the victim’s blood on it.
Lingman admitted charges of possessing drugs for supply, including the Class A drug cocaine, but pleaded not guilty to murder, arguing he acted in self-defence when he shot at his victim.
Lingman told police: “I was fearing for my life … this a***hole was coming to kill me and my son.”
The trial was told that Chance was Lingman’s cocaine supplier, and was angry that drugs he had stored on Lingman’s property had gone missing.
The jury found Lingman guilty of murder. He is now serving a life prison sentence with no parole for 15 years.
Lingman appealed against his murder conviction to the Court of Appeal, saying it was unsafe and should be quashed.
He claimed that the trial judge, Justice Melanie Harland, had given the jury erroneous directions on self-defence.
The Court of Appeal decided otherwise, noting that Justice Harland emphasised to the jury that “the Crown must make you sure” Lingman was not acting in self-defence.
The judge’s direction on the onus of the Crown to prove the charge was “conventional”, the decision said.
“We do not consider the judge was in error,” the Court of Appeal justices said.
Lingman also said that post-mortem photographs of Chance’s body were “highly prejudicial” and should have been ruled inadmissable, and that the judge gave inadequate directions to the jury about his conduct after killing Chance.
The appeal justices said a photograph of how Chance’s body and legs were situated in the freezer were “admissable and probative”.
“The photo was illustrative of a core component of the Crown’s case, that Mr Lingman’s callous treatment of the victim’s body supported an inference that he killed with intent, rather than in self-defence.”
The Court of Appeal justices said the directions the trial judge gave about Lingman’s conduct after killing Chance were sufficient to address any “unfair prejudice”.
“We consider no miscarriage of justice occurred,” their decision said.
The circumstances around the death are being treated as unexplained.