Stepfather pleads guilty to killing Coral

11.00am

Fired up on the methamphetamine drug P, Steven Williams battered his six-year-old stepdaughter to death when she complained she did not want to go to school.

He punched her unconscious and later fractured her skull hitting her with a tree branch, the Masterton District Court was told today.

Expected to be remanded for a depositions hearing, Williams, a drug dealer and user with 88 previous convictions, pleaded guilty to Coral's murder on September 9.

He has been remanded to the High Court in Wellington for sentencing on February 5.

Police told the court Williams savagely assaulted Coral in the back seat of her mother's car breaking her jaw and knocking her unconscious because she complained she did not want to go to school.

Just a few hours earlier Williams had finished a night-long P smoking session in Featherston.

After the initial assault, Williams then drove around the South Wairarapa for more than an hour with the bleeding unconscious child lying of the floor in the back of the car before pulling into a layby where he removed some of her clothing and carried her into nearby bush.

The packed court heard Williams placed Coral on the ground. As he did so she made a small noise and Williams then picked up a two- foot long tree branch and hit her once breaking her skull.

A pathology report had shown Coral was alive before she was hit with the branch.

Some time later the same day Williams returned to uplift Coral putting a stock feed sack over her upper body.

He then drove to the shore of Lake Onoke where he threw the sack containing her body into the middle of a toi toi bush.

Williams had told police he "lost the plot" when Coral refused to go to school and was subsequently "cheeky" to him.

He claimed that he flew into a rage such as he had never before experienced and as a result he leaned or half climbed over the front seats of the car and punched Coral about the head and face.

When the rage abated Coral was left unconscious and bleeding profusely from the mouth as she lay in front of the back seat. Williams had blood all over his hands.

Williams told police he then drove to the nearby Lake Reserve looking for a place to hide Coral, but as he drove into the reserve he was seen by a local farmer who was checking his stock.

As a result he drove out of the reserve and past the School before turning towards Kahutara on State Highway 53. Coral was still lying across the floor in front of the rear seat unconscious and bleeding.

In the meantime Coral's absence from school was picked up by the 9am roll call but because of an administrative error follow-up action was not taken.

Police said the force of the blow Williams delivered with the tree branch fractured Coral's skull severely, and broke the wood in two. Williams then concealed Coral by covering her with fallen branches and fled.

When later interviewed, police said Williams demonstrated the sound Coral made when he put her down, but claimed that he thought that she was dead although he said he wasn't certain.

He claimed that he hit her on the head with the piece of wood because he "didn't want her to suffer".

Later pathological examination revealed that Coral was alive at the time when the blow that fractured her skull was struck.

After covering Coral's body Williams drove on towards the Rimutaka Ranges, where he hid Coral's clothing in long grass at the foot of the Rimutaka Hill Road.

Williams then drove to a dairy where he tried, unsuccessfully, to buy bleach to clean up the car. Subsequently he walked to a local petrol station where he bought petrol and attempted to unsuccessfully clean blood stains in the car.

Williams told police he then returned to the house he shared with Coral's mother.

Soaking wet and smelling of petrol Williams pretended to Jeanna and Grant Cremmen that everything was normal and told them he had been driving around looking for a job on a dairy farm, Crown Prosecutor Grant Burston told the court.

Concerned for his well-being Jeanna Cremmen told Williams to have a shower and then helped him wash his sodden clothes.

After his shower, and in an attempt to conceal the attack, Williams cut the carpet from the rear foot wells of the vehicle and, after wiping the rear seat with a rag, set fire to the two pieces of carpet at the rear of the section.

Later Williams left the house with a friend, Grant Adams, in Adams' car, a brown Lada sedan.

After dropping Adams at a local address Williams then called at his mother's house but she did not answer his knock on the door.

The court was told Williams then went back to where Coral's body was hidden and put her body into a synthetic stockfeed sack and then into the boot of the Lada before driving south on Western Lake Road to the remote southern coast.

The court was told that Williams then took Coral from the boot of the car, carried her off the vehicle track and threw the sack containing her body into the middle of a toi toi bush.

Later Williams returned home and continued to pretend everything was normal the court was told.

At about 3.30pm he reminded Jeanna Cremen that she would have to pick up Coral and her brother Storm from the school bus.

After Jeanna found Coral was not on the bus and not at school police were called and a search started.

Mr Burston told the court that it was at this time that a police officer told his supervisor that because of Williams reaction to the news of Coral's disappearance he should be treated as a suspect.

Williams later spoke to police for more than an hour but continued to maintain he had dropped Coral at school that morning. After declining to speak further to police, complaining he was tired, hungry and wanted to comfort Coral's mother, he was taken home

The court was told that on arriving home Williams lay on the couch with a blanket over his head, despite the many people who had gathered there to support the search and the family.

Later that night Williams' mother said to her son that they had to go and find Coral.

Williams replied: "She's long gone mum. You know that, you know yourself that they can't last long in this weather".

He lay back down on the couch.

Meanwhile, an intensive search through paddocks, streams and bush in dreadful conditions had failed to find Coral.

The following morning, members of the Cremen family preparing to re-start the search had to coerce the accused to go with them.


- NZPA


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