Man killed with cat statue, court told

A son unhappy that his mother had let a new friend doss down on the lounge floor of their two-bedroom Stokes Valley unit dropped a 15.75kg cat statue on the sleeping man's head three times, the High Court at Wellington was told today.

Sean Dennis Brown, 27, a Miramar painter, has denied murdering Harold Skudder who disappeared just over three years ago.

Brown's trial, expected to last two weeks, opened this morning.

The cold case of the missing 38-year-old Mr Skudder reached a conclusion on March 19 last year when his skeletal remains were found down a steep bank off Moonshine Hill Road, Upper Hutt.

Brown had been arrested the day before and had led police to the scene.

His lawyer, Greg King, told the court that the case was not a "whodunit".

It was accepted and acknowledged that Sean Brown was responsible for killing Mr Skudder, he said.

There was no dispute about the cause of death - the question was whether the accused had acted with murderous intent.

For the Crown, Geraldine Kelly said Skudder had met Brown's mother, Lorraine, a few months before his death and they had become friends.

When he moved from his accommodation he asked if he could stay and she agreed. The accused was not happy about it. Her two sons shared a bedroom and she had the other one so Mr Skudder slept in the lounge.

On January 24, 2007, Skudder bought some beer to celebrate Sean Brown's 22nd birthday. After drinking it, everybody decided about 10pm to go to bed.

Half an hour after Mr Skudder went to sleep, Brown entered the lounge, lifted one of two hefty cat ornaments off the mantelpiece, raised it to his shoulder level and dropped it on the sleeping man's head.

He did this twice before Mr Skudder started making gurgling noises. Brown's mother got up to investigate and he stopped her at her bedroom door.

Ms Kelly said the accused told his mother a "mobster guy" had arrived to see "Harry" and she should stay in her room, which she did.

Returning to the lounge, Brown dropped the statue on Mr Skudder a third time "to make sure he was dead".

He then wrapped the bleeding man in his bedding, dragged the body to the window and threw it outside.

The accused went and asked his mother for the keys to her car so he could drop the Mongrel Mob member and Skudder off.

He struggled to cram the body into the boot of the small two-door car, crumpling it up.

The jury heard how Brown drove to Moonshine Hill Road, pulled Mr Skudder's body out of the car by the feet and rolled it to the edge of the road, pushing it down a bank about a metre and a half down into bush.

He did not think it had gone far enough so he held onto a tree and pushed the body further down with his foot, Ms Kelly said.

Brown returned home and gave his mother back her car keys.

- NZPA