The woman's body was found at a South Auckland address on Saturday at 4.30pm. Video / Hayden Woodward
A lawyer for murder defendant Vikhil Krishna acknowledged to jurors today that his client killed 16-year-old Trinity OIiver in the car park of a South Auckland train station and abandoned her body on the side of the road.
But Krishna, 24, should be found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder, lawyer Ron Mansfield, KC, said as the trial began in the High Court at Auckland.
“No matter how tragic this event is ... the reality is he didn’t intend to kill her nor did he even contemplate it because he was simply out of it,” Mansfield said. “And that, folks, is the horror of methamphetamine.”
Oliver, whose name was suppressed until today, was found dead near the Homai train station in Manurewa on September 11, 2021.
Crown prosecurtor Yasmin OIsen told jurors the teen was found to have suffered extensive injuries, including a bite mark on her wrist and abrasions suggesting she had been strangled. The markings on her neck were consistent with a phone charging cable that police later found in Krishna’s car, Olsen said.
Vikhil Krishna appears in the Auckland High Court, accused of having murdered 16-year-old Trinity Oliver in September 2021. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Trinity Oliver, 16, was found dead on September 11, 2021, in Manurewa. Photo / Facebook
CCTV footage at the train station showed the defendant’s car parked there for 36 minutes in the early hours of the morning. Police would later find photos on his phone, depicting sexual activity, that were timestamped during that same period.
After driving away, Krishna went to several petrol stations where he was described as acting strangely. He was not wearing pants at one stop and was seen on CCTV at another wearing what prosecutors believe to have been Oliver’s Gucci brand slides.
About an hour and a half after the incident, he called 111 and said he had been attacked in his car by a woman he had just met.
“She started kicking me,” he said during the 10-minute call, which was played for jurors. “She tried to grab my keys from the engine. [She said], ‘Get the f*** out of the car. This is mine now.’”
Police went to his Papatoetoe home later that morning to ask him about the incident and he insisted on showing them what he said were his injuries. One officer noted what looked like a small red dot, Olsen said.
“When asked what happened he looked ... hesitant to reply,” she said. “He then became very sketchy, according to one of the officers.”
But Oliver’s body wouldn’t be found until about 12 hours later, so police advised him against letting strangers into his car and left.
When they returned about a week later to execute a search warrant, his bags were packed and he had told acquaintances that he intended to move back to Fiji, prosecutors said. He was found to have asked the internet, “Can you kill someone in a headlock?”
To be found guilty of murder, jurors have to believe Krishna either intended to kill the teen or to have known there was a risk she could die as a result of his actions and intentionally disregarded the risk.
Prosecutors pointed out that a strangulation takes minutes, not seconds. The fact the teen suffered a “significant” assault prior to the strangling further shows his intent, they said.
“This wasn’t a case involving the accidental application of pressure to Trinity Oliver’s neck during a sexual encounter,” Olsen said. “This was an intentional killing.”
The defence, meanwhile, acknowledged the assault and acknowledged that Krishna lied to police and to those around him in the days after Oliver’s death.
But he didn’t use a phone cord to strangle her and he never thought she might die, Mansfield said.
Mansfield described the defendant and the teen as “two young people who clearly liked each other” and would “steal moments together” when they could. Often, he said, those moments included methamphetamine and sexual activity — as they did on the morning of Oliver’s death.
The methamphetamine usage, he predicted, will be crucial for jurors in deciding the case and his client’s intentions.
“[The drug] is likely to have influenced not only his actions but his ability to think at [the] key time”, Mansfield said.
The trial, before Justice Peter Andrew, is set to continue tomorrow.
