KEY POINTS:
An anonymous letter linking Haumoana man Murray Foreman to the Jack Nicholas shooting was sparked by its writer's memories of the death of a friend.
But, unmasked in the High Court at Napier yesterday, writer Antoinette Cuthill-Coutts, also of Haumoana, said the letter's point was to alert police to another man, and she believed Foreman was being used as a "pawn" in the tragedy.
Asked by Crown prosecutor RussellCollins why she wrote the letter, she said she had had personal tragedy before in her life, when she believed a friend who had died had been murdered.
"Nobody has the right to take anybody's life," she said on the 10th day of a trial in which Foreman, 51, denies any involvement in the killing of Mr Nicholas, who was 71 when he was shot dead on August 27, 2004.
The letter followed a visit to Foreman where he lived at the time with his 9-year-old son in Grove Rd, Haumoana, more than 80km from the shooting scene at Makahu, in the foothills of the Kaweka Ranges.
A solo mother, Ms Cuthill-Coutts came to know Foreman as a friend who would help with "handyman" jobs around her home.
She would also visit his home, and during one such visit which she thought was a few weeks after the shooting, Foreman talked about it with friend and workmate Deon Betty, of Te Awanga.
She said that during the conversation, Foreman, who she knew as "Mo," talked of having obtained a gun from a man named "Carlos", and at one stage commented on the killing by saying, "Good f****** job, anyway".
She told Mr Collins she was "really perturbed," and Foreman explained he had had an altercation with Mr Nicholas.
Ms Cuthill-Coutts said that talk of the gun was in the context of "the" gun, and agreed that in a statement made on November 30, 2004, she said: "I don't know where the gun is now, but it was at Murray's place."
Mr Collins: Because it was what he told you?
Ms Cuthill-Coutts: Either that or I was led to believe that.
Responding to a question from assistant defence lawyer Chris Stevenson, she said at the time she wrote the letter she thought Foreman might be talking about a gun "Carlos" had used.
She saw his guns, which she believed to be "3-0 somethings".
Police said earlier in the trial that Foreman initially denied owning guns of the .308 calibre used in the shooting, but disclosed two such guns after police showed him a photograph of ammunition found in a search of the Grove Rd property.
Neither was the murder weapon, and police say they have not found the gun used in the killing.
- NZPA
