KEY POINTS:
The New Zealander whose girlfriend was found dead in a large chilly bin in his United States hotel room lived a lavish life of limousines, bars, expensive clothes and girls.
Stephen David Royds was friendly, popular and very wealthy, a friend from Newport Beach, California, told the Herald
yesterday.
He was known at every high-class bar in the city, had a chauffeur and lived at four-star hotel Fairmont Newport Beach for two years, where rooms cost up to US$200 ($250) a night.
The dream lifestyle on the ritzy strip of the Pacific Coast Highway was likely paid for by drug trafficking, the friend said.
Royds faces charges relating to cocaine.
The friend, who the Herald has agreed not to identify, said he was not certain where Royds' money came from, but he did not appear to work and his drug connections were known.
The friend also knew Royds' partner, Monique Trepp.
Royds kept Ms Trepp's body on dry ice for more than a year before California police found it last Thursday.
The friend said he had shared dinner with Royds late last year. He was "shocked" when he heard Ms Trepp had passed away.
He had asked Royds about Ms Trepp, face to face, during the dinner.
"I asked him how Monique was doing. And he said she had passed away, and that she had been sick."
At times throughout the meal, Royds had seemed upset and withdrawn, the man said.
But he had answered the questions about Ms Trepp "very calmly", and there was nothing in his face or eyes suggesting Ms Trepp was packed, fully clothed among dry ice, in a chilly bin in his hotel room, the man said.
"Then I read otherwise in the paper this morning. I just thought it was weird, that Steve would allegedly keep her in his room.
"I know that they'd been seeing each other over the years. And Steve had an obvious affinity for her."
Ms Trepp used to work in a bar in Orange County. She was a likeable, friendly and popular woman, the man said.
Royds, who still had his New Zealand accent, was also well liked, and "didn't seem like a bad person", the man said.
He constantly had "a little entourage with him", travelled in a limousine, used a driver, dressed "extremely" well and frequented the town's bars and entertainment venues. "They were a group of guys out to have a good time. There was maybe a girl or two.
"He was a very likeable person. If you were to go through all the bars down on the PCH [Pacific Coast Highway] in Newport, Steve would frequent a lot of them. And I don't know if that was for his distribution purposes, or whatever it was. Because I didn't know that side of him.
"They didn't draw any attention to themselves. They'd just get out of their ride, come in to the bar, spend a little bit of money, and then go."
Ms Trepp was sometimes part of that group, the man said. Some of the people she associated with were known drug users.
Royds' comments to police that "everything that happened was for religious reasons" came as news to the man.
"He didn't come across as being an overly religious person."