Pensioner murder accused 'broke and bitter' before deaths

Hours after killing two Feilding pensioners, David Konia went to his Seventh Day Adventist Church and asked for a lift to hospital to get medication for schizophrenia, a court heard yesterday.

Konia, 53, unemployed, of Feilding, has pleaded not guilty in the High Court at Palmerston North to murdering Ted Ferguson, 73, and Margaret Walden on about May 27 last year.

Crown prosecutor Tim Brewer outlined a version of events that evening that allegedly culminated in Konia following Mrs Walden to Mr Ferguson's flat where he first stabbed Mrs Walden to death at the front door before stabbing Mr Ferguson as he tried to get up out of bed.

On the Saturday morning after the pensioners were killed, Konia went to the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Feilding and the jury would hear testimony from the pastor there, Mr Brewer said.

The pastor had driven him to hospital, from where he said he needed to get medication to treat his schizophrenia.

Konia, suffering from Parkinson's disease and shaking progressively more noticeably as the day went on, sat quietly in the dock facing the 10-woman and two-man jury, his only words when he answered "not guilty" to each of the two murder charges.

Mr Brewer said Konia was a "loner" who was not a friend of the pair but "kind of hung around on the edges" of their social group.

Mr Brewer said witnesses would testify how a few weeks before the night the pair were murdered, Konia had won about $300 on the pokies and shouted drinks at the Manchester Tavern. But on the night of May 27 in Feilding Konia was broke and couldn't afford to buy himself a drink.

The Crown alleges that at the tavern he overheard Mrs Walden ask Mr Ferguson to leave the door unlocked at his flat as he was leaving the tavern earlier than she was.

Mr Brewer said Konia was "thinking bitter thoughts" about the people who he had bought drinks for weeks earlier but who did not now offer him a drink when he was broke. So he followed Mrs Walden when she left the tavern.

- NZPA