Man predicted his murder, court told

A homosexual West Coast man prophesied his murder at a party in Westport in 1999, the Greymouth District Court was told yesterday.

Leighton Brian Wilding, 27, of Upper Hutt, and Hayden Brent McKenzie, 26, of Westport, are charged with the murder of James John (Janis) Bambrough.

Mr Bambrough disappeared from a party at Westport on October 12, 1999, but his body was not found until September 22 this year, when it was recovered from a shallow grave at Denniston, 30km north of Westport.

Crown prosecutor Brent Stanaway told a depositions hearing yesterday that Wilding and McKenzie choked Mr Bambrough and held his head under water at the Buller River.

Mr Bambrough was a transient who lived on the West Coast with his two dogs in a stationwagon. He was a friend of McKenzie's mother and McKenzie had known him for about 15 years.

Wilding had only met him on October 11 when he helped to tow Mr Bambrough's vehicle, which had broken down.

Mr Bambrough was in the process of buying another vehicle and promised his car to McKenzie when the sale was complete, but reneged on that offer.

On October 12, to celebrate buying the new vehicle, Mr Bambrough shouted drinks at the McKenzie home, becoming very drunk early in the night. He embarrassed Wilding by giving him a hug at one stage and things became tense between them.

Mr Bambrough said at one stage: "They [Wilding and McKenzie] are going to get me ... going to kill me".

McKenzie, in reference to the victim, at one stage said: "I hate faggots."

About midnight, all the others had left the party or gone to bed, leaving McKenzie, Wilding, Mr Bambrough and another man there.

Mr Stanaway said McKenzie and Wilding ran the other man home, returned to the party house and invited Mr Bambrough to go with them to the river bank, where they murdered him.

They put his body in Wilding's car and took it to Seddonville, where they hid it under some scrub because the ground was too hard. The men picked the body up the next day and moved it to another area, but this also proved unsuitable so it was again hidden until the following evening, when it was buried.

Wilding then went back to Nelson and arranged for his brother, Devon, and Brian McCormack to take his car to a remote area and burn it out.

Mr Stanaway said McKenzie and Wilding both bragged of the killing to friends but emphatically denied any involvement in numerous interviews with police until this year.

McKenzie led police to the grave.

- NZPA