KEY POINTS:
Murder accused Tracy Goodman arrived at a friend's house stressed, with a radical new haircut, bearing a handbag and purses she "could not be caught with", the friend told the High Court at Wanganui today.
Goodman asked the friend, Palmerston North woman Andrea Stratford, to dispose of the bag, saying she could not afford to be seen with it.
The visit came shortly after Marton pensioner Mona Morriss was killed in her Wellington Road flat.
Goodman, 42, is charged with Mrs Morriss' murder, and the burglary of her flat, on January 3, 2005.
The Crown says she killed Mrs Morriss after the elderly lady interrupted her in the act of burgling her home.
Goodman is a habitual burglar, with 86 convictions, most targeting the elderly.
However, the defence says this does not make her a murderer, and Goodman denies both charges.
Miss Stratford told the court she had known Goodman for a number of years, having met her in a drug rehabilitation centre.
Goodman frequently visited her house, and sometimes brought her jewellery to sell.
She turned up sometime after the New Year in 2005, with a newly-cut short, dyed, hairdo, Miss Stratford said. Prior to that, her hair had been long.
When Goodman gave her the blue handbag and asked her to dispose of it for her, she had no idea why, and after looking through the bag, left it in her shed for a few weeks before throwing it away.
Inside the bag were several purses, some documents, including a photo ID, and a small blue sewing tape.
She said she later recalled the photo on the identification had been of an old lady, with the first name Mona.
"I recalled that, it wasn't until later, because my best friend has a mother called Mona and it's not a common name and that's how I remembered," she said.
Defence counsel Mike Antunovich asked how it was the name just happened to come to her nearly two years later.
Miss Stratford said she was being questioned by police over the matter and various things came back to her over a period of months.
Mr Antunovich pointed out she had previously, in depositions hearings and in statements to the police, said the identification was a driver's licence.
Mrs Morriss never owned a driver's licence.
Miss Stratford said she had initially thought the identification could have been a driver's licence but after thinking about it, realised the photo was too big, and it was probably a membership card or something.
The trial, before Justice Mark Cooper, began on September 3, and is expected to last about another two weeks.
- NZPA
