Killing scene like a horror show, jury told

File photo / NZ Herald

One of the men accused of murdering an Upper Hutt transvestite told his partner the scene of the killing looked like a horror show, a jury was told today.

David Shaun Galloway, 20, and Phillip Christopher Sanders, 42, have pleaded not guilty in the High Court in Wellington to murdering Richard Milton Jones, 64.

Mr Jones, who was known as Dixie and dressed in woman's clothes, died from head injuries last year after he was attacked in his Totara Park Rd, Upper Hutt, flat on April 29 last year.

Each accused is blaming the other for slaying.

Sanders' girlfriend at the time of the incident, Amanda Beck, was in the witness stand for most of today.

Visibly upset, she told the jury she was with the two accused for most of the day leading up to the killing, when the pair was drinking and smoking marijuana.

She later got a phone call from Sanders and she asked him what happened.

Sanders told her the scene in the bedroom, where Mr Jones was killed, was bad.

"It was like a horror show," he added.

The trial, before Justice Robert Dobson, is set down to continue for a four weeks.

- NZPA