Jodie Shannon Hughes has been accused of murdering Taranaki farm worker Jacob Mills Ramsay in July last year. Photo / Tara Shaskey
Jodie Shannon Hughes has been accused of murdering Taranaki farm worker Jacob Mills Ramsay in July last year. Photo / Tara Shaskey
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
A witness to a grisly murder has emotionally recalled the moment he tried to stop a killer from dragging a chained man to his death, and the fraught days that followed.
“I flew around to the passenger side of the vehicle, opened the door, tried to, like, talk him out of it,” the man said of his exchange with William Candy, who was sitting behind the wheel of a car to which Jacob Ramsay was tied by his ankle.
“[I said] you don’t need to do this, you know, it’s not too late. Take him to the hospital or something.”
Candy, in an “aggressive and threatening” tone, told the man, who has interim name suppression, to “get the f... out of the car if you don’t want to be a part of it”.
The witness shut the door and stepped back, passing Ethan Webster, who jumped into the car with Candy.
The man said Ramsay, 33, was unconscious behind the car. He was on his back with his feet to the rear of the vehicle. He was not wearing a shirt or his glasses.
As the car began to drive down the Kina Rd gravel tanker track, the man looked away.
The trial of Jodie Shannon Hughes for the murder of Jacob Ramsay began in the High Court at New Plymouth on Monday. Photo / Tara Shaskey
“I couldn’t watch it,” he said, his voice breaking.
On Wednesday, he was in the High Court at New Plymouth giving testimony in the trial of Jodie Shannon Hughes, who has been accused of murdering Ramsay, a father of three, on July 29 last year.
The pair said Ramsay owed them money and, on the day of his death, Candy gave Ramsay a beating at the Oakura cemetery before forcing him into Hughes’ vehicle and taking him back to the dairy farm in Oaonui, South Taranaki, where they all worked and lived in separate farmhouses.
Back at the farm, Webster, 19, launched a fresh attack on Ramsay and Candy also joined in.
Candy, 39, then chained Ramsay to the back of the car and he and Webster dragged him for almost a kilometre along the farm’s tanker track.
His body was dumped into a rubbish pit at the farm.
The witness told the trial that, before seeing the harrowing event, he had arrived at Webster’s farmhouse, which was on the tanker track.
He could hear Webster walking down the track and said he sounded aggressive and was yelling.
Jabob Ramsay was killed by his co-workers, William Candy and Ethan Webster. Photo / Supplied
Around that point, Hughes and Candy pulled up in a vehicle.
As Candy and Webster drove down the tanker track, Hughes, the witness and another witness, who was also called to give evidence, waited in a nearby farmhouse.
The man told the court Hughes was agitated and pacing around the kitchen, while the other man was “pale and freaking out”.
When Candy and Webster returned, the two of them and Hughes were “kind of happy about what had just taken place”, the witness claimed.
Ethan Webster (left) and William Candy admitted the murder of Ramsay and were sentenced in March. Photo / Tara Shaskey
He said that, in the days afterwards, he didn’t sleep and was afraid for his and his family’s safety.
When Ramsay was found dead at the pit two days later by his employer, emergency services were called and police swarmed the farm.
The witness said it was the first time he had felt safe since the night of the murder. He packed his family up shortly afterwards and left town.
When asked by Crown prosecutor Cherie Clarke why he did not check on Ramsay, who he knew was in the pit, the witness said: “Fearful for myself and my kids.”
“Fearful of whom,” Clarke asked.
“Will and Jodie and Ethan,” he said, his voice breaking again.
During her cross-examination of the witness, defence lawyer Tiffany Cooper, KC, suggested the man was part of a group plan to bash Ramsay.
He admitted he had been frustrated by Ramsay’s poor work ethic and his alleged theft of petrol and equipment from the farm, but said he was not involved in any retribution.
The witness also accepted that, on the morning of Ramsay’s death, he had warned people in the area that “something was going down that night”.
He maintained Candy had told him about money Ramsay owed and he “had a feeling” there was going to be trouble.
At the outset of the trial, Hughes pleaded guilty to kidnapping Ramsay and the burglary of his home but maintained her pleas of not guilty to murder and to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH).
The Crown alleges that, while Hughes did not physically harm Ramsay, she was “very much” involved in Candy’s violence towards him, making her a party to the GBH and murder.
But Cooper said her client had no idea the beating meted out by the men would progress to the deadly level that it did.
The jury has heard Hughes was allegedly so angry with Ramsay’s failure to repay $150 she and Candy lent him that she decided to take matters into her own hands.
She broke into his home and stole his TV, then allegedly implored Candy to help get their money back.
Hughes drove him to Oakura where the attack on Ramsay began, helped detain him on the ride back to the farm, and has been accused of encouraging the violence, smiling as it played out and stopping a person from trying to intervene.
Ramsay suffered more than 30 blunt-force trauma injuries to his head, neck, chest and limbs, as well as lacerations to his scalp, multiple fractures and brain bleeds.
He was bleeding profusely and the skin on the rear of his head had been torn off down to his skull, giving the appearance that he had been “scalped”.
The trial, which is set down for two weeks, continues on Thursday when the jury will be taken to the scene of the crime.
Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff where she covered crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.
