KEY POINTS:
A Taranaki farmer yesterday described seeing a beat-up 4WD with two suspicious occupants not far from the site of German backpacker Birgit Brauer's brutal killing.
David Leatherby told a jury in the High Court at New Plymouth he had been driving south of Oakura on September 20, 2005, when he spotted a "very rough" Toyota Hilux Surf.
"It didn't look like a local vehicle. [It] should not have been on the road, I felt."
The vehicle was being driven by a man, with a "very pale" woman in the passenger seat.
"She stood out because she was very white. They looked like an odd couple," he said. "She wasn't very happy. Not smiling."
He said the woman raised her hand, as if to wave, as the vehicle went past.
Police say Michael Scott Wallace was driving the Toyota and the passenger was Miss Brauer.
Wallace, 46, is accused of murdering the 28-year-old by beating her about the head with an iron bar, then stabbing her through the heart, at Lucys Gully, southwest of New Plymouth later that day.
Wallace - a firewood cutter from Himatangi, near Palmerston North - denies the charge.
Mr Leatherby told Crown prosecutor Tim Brewer he followed the Toyota for a short while.
However, his evidence was questioned by Wallace's lawyer, Patrick Mooney, who suggested he had identified the Toyota as being the same one fished by police from the Ohau River, south of Levin, simply to help out investigators.
Mr Leatherby's willingness to give evidence was in stark contrast to that of another witness called yesterday.
Alexander Bishop - who had to be summoned to give evidence - volunteered little information.
Mr Bishop did admit to having known Wallace for about eight years - but had not seen him in about four years - when he turned up out of the blue at Mr Bishop's home at Rangitaiki, near Taupo, on September 16, 2005.
He said he had loaned Wallace a scissors jack, which he subsequently let him keep. He believed Wallace - who stayed at his home overnight - intended to continue on to Himatangi after first going to New Plymouth to collect Maori potatoes.
Mr Bishop agreed with Mr Mooney that Wallace was "a spiritual man, interested in Maori myths and legends".
Earlier yesterday, image analyst Rodney McCourt gave evidence of his analysis of CCTV footage taken from Waverley and photographs of the Toyota dredged from the Ohau River.
His explanation of stereo-imaging required jurors, lawyers, media and Justice Mark Cooper at one point to don 3-D glasses similar to those popular with cinemagoers of the past.
Mr McCourt's analysis concluded there was "no significant difference" between the two vehicles. He said he could not positively identify occupants in the vehicle captured on the CCTV images.
The trial continues.
