Murdered designer's sex life 'out of control'

Television personality David McNee used to cruise red light districts looking for rent boys, a murder trial in the High Court at Auckland heard yesterday.

According to a friend, David Matulovich, Mr McNee preferred "darker skinned, burly, biggish Polynesian or Maori male types".

Mr McNee was found battered to death in his St Mary's Bay home on July 22 last year. Friends alerted police when they could not contact him.

Mr Matulovich went into Mr McNee's Hackett St home with police to pacify his two dogs, unfed for two days since Mr McNee's death.

The Crown, represented by Aaron Perkins and Natalie Walker, claims that the interior designer, who has appeared on several popular television programmes, was murdered by a homeless man he picked up for sex on K Rd.

Phillip Layton Edwards, 24, who is represented by Roy Wade and Adam Couchman, denies the charge.

In a statement read to the court Mr Matulovich, who is abroad, said that Mr McNee would constantly brag about his sexual exploits.

"Some of the things he would say - it just got to the point where I would say, 'I don't want to know'. It wasn't that it bothered me. It was just a bit tedious at times."

He said Mr McNee used to cruise around trying to pick up young Polynesian men in his new Audi TT convertible coupe.

"The car was like a magnet to pick up guys. He used to impress people," Mr Matulovich said, adding that Mr McNee's television celebrity was also a drawcard.

Mr McNee's favourite haunt for cruising was a park in Manukau opposite the council offices. He also frequented K Rd.

Mr Matulovich said that Mr McNee's many sexual partners would come over at all hours of the day and night.

"Guys he would sleep with for a week or so would then say they were going back to their wives and then one month, two months later ... would show up at David's again."

In the two or three months before his death Mr Matulovich said that it started to "become more entwined, more out of control".

Mr McNee started having multiple sexual liaisons "threesomes, sometimes more, I think".

"Some of these people knew he was seeing someone else and having many other relationships.

"There could have been maybe 20 or 30 men ... these people, David would tell me were getting jealous," Mr Matulovich said.

But Mr McNee also recognised the risks he was running.

"David was apprehensive about the situation. He was concerned about the lack of control."

Mr Matulovich said Mr McNee told him a couple of days before his death that he used amylnitrate, a sex stimulant. He said he noticed a scab on Mr McNee's nose, a sign of overuse of amyl, also known as "rush".

The court also heard that on Sunday, July 20, last year, the night of the killing, Mr McNee visited two K Rd establishments. At the Den where he was a regular, he went to the back, to the "gay cruise area", with a Maori man in his early 30s.

Part-time shop assistant Rawiri Keelan said the gay cruise area was where "gay guys go to meet each other and, if they choose, to go to a private room and have sex".

Sometimes Mr McNee brought a male partner, but mostly he met men in the cruise area.

Later that night, Mr McNee went to the Owl Bar, which is patronised by gays, lesbians, transsexuals, transgenders and on Sunday nights, by street kids. He would often leave with young Maori or Polynesian men.

The court heard that friends alerted the police when Mr McNee had failed to keep appointments and contact them. He was found, severely beaten, wrapped in bedclothes on his bedroom floor.

The trial before Justice Marion Frater continues today.