NZ student planned wife's murder two days earlier - tape

Blazej Kot is accused of murdering wife Caroline. Photo / Supplied

A New Zealand doctoral student on trial in the United States for murdering his wife told a psychiatrist he thought of the plan to kill her two days before the murder.

Blazej Kot, 25, formerly of Auckland, said in a videotaped interview with a defence psychiatrist he started fantasising about the death of his wife, Dr Caroline Coffey, 28, weeks before, WENY TV reported.

He took a box-cutter utility knife when he and Dr Coffey went jogging on June 2, 2009, near their home at Ithaca in New York state, he said.

Kot, charged with second degree murder, arson and tampering with evidence, believed killing Dr Coffey was the only way to free himself from the "test" he felt he was living, WBNG TV reported.

He thought he was being tested by an unseen force, he told psychiatrist Dr Rory Houghtalen in one of several interviews screened for the jury.

At first, he wanted Dr Coffey to die in a tragic accident, but soon believed he had to do it himself. All the details came to him in an overnight vision.

Two days later, while the couple were jogging, Kot picked up a lead pipe and hit Dr Coffey a couple of times, knocking her to the ground.

He slit her throat with a box cutter, and ran home.

Kot said he took a drink to calm his nerves, then washed his hands, decided to burn his clothes and kill himself to stop the test.

Dr. Houghtalen is expected to take the stand again tomorrow (NZ time) and to canvass an argument that an anti-malaria medication coupled with a "schitzotypal personality disorder" led Kot to kill.

- NZPA