Row, drinks before stabbing

A grossly inebriated man who argued with a woman over a broken bed is said to have been stabbed to death by her angry boyfriend.

Edwin Godfrey Whiu, aged 30, unemployed, of no fixed abode, spent three minutes in a Papakura District Court dock yesterday before being sent to the High Court on one charge of murder.

He is alleged to have killed 23-year-old James Edward Wilson at a Manurewa lodging-house on March 9.

Police gave their version of events in one of several papers filed in court. They said Mr Wilson drank and sniffed an "excessive" amount of alcohol, paint and glue with a group of other people at the Arbor Close doss-house the day before the killing.

Late in the evening, Mr Wilson and Whiu's girlfriend argued about a broken bed, which appeared to make Whiu angry. Early the next morning Whiu and his girlfriend argued in a bedroom about her alleged dalliances with other men.

Police said Whiu left the bedroom and walked through a kitchen, where someone grabbed a knife from him. Whiu found Wilson in a lounge, punched him in the chest and verbally abused him.

Police alleged that Whiu then grabbed Wilson by the left shoulder, pulled a knife and stabbed him twice in the back. The second wound slit veins in Wilson's lower abdomen, and he bled to death before an ambulance arrived.

Wilson was said to be too drunk to fight back.

Whiu is yet to give his side of the story in court. His lawyer, Roger Chambers, agreed there was a case to answer and the case was sent to the High Court to be heard on July 5.