Samuel Pou was drinking beer with a friend when he allegedly confessed to killing his partner Bridget Simmonds and burning her body on a farm in Northland.
The chilling evidence was given in the High Court at Whangārei on Friday by David Erihe who said Pou told him that he "wasted her, got rid of her" but didn't elaborate how.
Pou, he said, wasn't a close friend of his but he knew Pou's younger brother.
Samuel Pou is accused of killing Simmonds, who he was in a relationship with, between February 23, 2019 and March 16, 2019, and burying her body in a shallow grave on a property on Wilson Rd in Parakao.
The Crown case is he punched Simmonds more than 100 times for over an hour after she spilled wine in a hut the couple were living in, which led to her death.