The man accused of murdering Grace Millane broke down during a second interview with police and admitted his Tinder date was dead and how he had disposed of her body.
The jury in the High Court at Auckland has today watched the videotaped interview conducted on December 8 - a week after Millane went missing.
The accused eventually agreed to tell detectives where Grace's body could be found because he wanted her family to have "closure".
Crown prosecutors allege that on the night of December 1 last year - the eve of Millane's 22nd birthday - the accused strangled her to death in his CityLife hotel apartment.
The Herald brings you the latest updates from the courtroom today:
Crown closes its case against accused
4:30pm
The Crown has now presented all its evidence against the accused.
About 30 witnesses were used by the prosecutors during the first two weeks of the trial.
The defence will now prepare its case - which is likely to begin on Monday.
A person's neck can be 'compressed relatively easily' - doctor
4.20pm
Dr Clare Healy, a forensic physician, gave evidence this afternoon via video link from Australia.
An expert in non-fatal strangulation, she explained how sensitive the human brain is to oxygen deprivation.
"Brain cells do not survive without oxygen."
She told the court a person's neck could be "compressed relatively easily" and if pressure continued it may result in death.
"The signs and symptoms will depend on the amount of pressure and how long it is applied for," she said.
"Recovery may occur after pressure is released ... If pressure is continued death will arise."
Healy said just 2kg of pressure on a person's neck may interfere with blood flow. This, she said, was equivalent to the amount of pressure required to crush a can of Coke.
Under cross-examination by the accused's lawyer Ian Brookie, Healy said a person could die from pressure to their neck in one or all of four ways - restriction of the veins, arteries, windpipe or pressure on a small cluster of nerve cells.
Evidence buried beneath 10m of trash and the accused's mystery trip to Mission Bay
3.00pm
Detective Inspector Scott Beard, the officer in charge of the police investigation, told the court his team made inquiries to find Millane's possessions after they were dumped in an Albert Park trash bin by the accused.
He said police were led to a tip in East Tamaki.
It was a 100m by 70m area.
Of more concern, he said, was that every day an additional 2m of soil was dumped on top of the day's rubbish.
Because police didn't know Millane's possessions were there until days after the accused discarded them on December 5, her clothes - and more importantly her phone - was now 10m underground and in an unknown location.
"The decision was made that it was so resource intensive that we would not search the tip," Beard said.
Police have never found Millane's cellphone.
The veteran detective also told the court the accused made an Uber trip to Mission Bay on December 6 at 5.22am.
However, records show, eight minutes after arriving at the seaside suburb the accused caught another Uber back to the city and returned to the CityLife hotel at 5.58am.
Beard said police made inquiries to collect the CCTV footage from the area but found it was no longer available.
"A large part of the investigation was around CCTV in the city," he said. "There are a lot of cameras in the city. By the time we got to Mission Bay it was too late."
Cellphone polling data, Beard said, also showed the accused had been in the Waitakere Ranges before he confessed to dumping Millane's body there.
"Our whole aim in the investigation was to find Grace, we would have found her because we were right in that area," he said.
Up to 70 police staff were part of the investigation, Beard said.
Accused had bruises, scratches: doctor
12.40pm
Dr Samuel Rawlings conducted a medical exam of the accused at 11pm on December 8.
"Because I want her family to know that it wasn't intentional," he said.
"But I also want her family to have closure and the other night when I was questioned by police I was still shocked and I apologise for misleading. So yeah, it's basically so her family understand that it wasn't an intentional thing."
'I'm sorry': Accused told police he started dialling 111
11.30am
When asked by Detective Ewen Settle why he didn't call for an ambulance the accused said he "dialled 111".
"But I didn't hit the button because I was scared at how bad it looked," he said.
"There's a dead person in my room, I thought it looked terrible. Waking up to it I was like 'holy sh*t'."
That "friend" was another Tinder date he went on in Ponsonby on December 2.
"I couldn't get through the beer I was drinking," he said.
"I got back to CityLife and ... I spewed up a few times because I couldn't put Grace in the bag. All I could think about was what we shared the night before.
"And then I put her in the bag. And the whole time I just kept saying I'm sorry," he said crying.
In the dock, the accused kept his head down, sniffed and blew his nose.
The accused then moved the body on a luggage trolley from the hotel and into a rental car.
"I sat there for a little while, praying," he said, after parking the car in a nearby parking building.
The next morning he drove to a hardware store in West Auckland and bought a shovel before continuing to the Waitakere Ranges.
"I went into the bush ... And I start digging."
The accused said he again took "20 maybe 30 paracetamol tablets".
"Because I didn't want to be around if Grace wasn't there and didn't think I deserved to be around because of what happened.
"I went and got the suitcase and put it in the hole, and covered the hole and then I drove 10-20 metres to the reservoir and sat there. I sat there just wanting the paracetamol to kick in, it didn't, so I drove back to the city."
This morning's evidence has started with a central Auckland pharmacist talking about her interaction with the accused on December 3.
In a statement read to the court, Eliana Golberstein said the alleged murderer came into the store at about 3.40pm and was "behaving oddly".
She said he was "standing there weirdly looking at the cameras and playing with his hands".
Golberstein said the accused informed her he had a bad allergy and had hives on his hands.
"I noticed he was not speaking to my face or looking at my eyes," her statement read, adding there were red marks between his fingers and on the back of his hands.
"His eyes were creepy looking, they are rather intimidating," Golberstein said.
After seeing the accused's name published in overseas media in stories about the disappearance of Millane "it triggered me to come in and talk to police".
Accused's Tinder date after Grace's death
The somewhat notorious hills in the city's west were mentioned by the accused during a Tinder date at a Ponsonby bar during the afternoon of December 2 - just hours after Millane died.
The accused's date recalled her rendezvous with the alleged murderer for the Auckland court yesterday.
She said the accused mentioned all his mates were police officers and that he was "trying to find a really large duffel bag".
He then began regaling a story about a man who accidentally killed a woman during rough sex and was later convicted of manslaughter, the woman said.