Then he said 'I've killed Carmen'

Okahu Bay. Photo / NZ Herald

Of all the thick folders of police evidence against Brad Callaghan, the most startling is a 23-page statement from one of his best friends.

The 32-year-old man is a key witness in the murder trial for both the Crown and defence lawyer Stuart Grieve, QC - Callaghan has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his former partner, Carmen Thomas.

He cannot be named but has known Callaghan since their days at Auckland Grammar and describes him as "pretty outspoken, really likes sports", "always happy and loves his son Jack".

Witness 70, as he is known, told police, "I'd never describe him as an angry person, I mean he shouts at sports games, but who doesn't?"

On the Friday morning of July 2, 2010, he missed a phone call from Callaghan. He told police it wasn't unusual for his friend to call on Fridays to talk about rugby or plans for the weekend. The pair eventually spoke to each other, with Callaghan asking if they could go boating the following morning.

"I said to him 'it's your lucky day'." Witness 70 was already planning to take his 4.5m Buccaneer out to his yacht, moored at Okahu Bay, to clean it before it was sold.

Callaghan tried to convince him to head out on the water around 7.30am, according to Witness 70, but he wanted to sleep in on a Saturday morning.

"I thought at the time I was talking with [Callaghan] that he sounded a bit serious for him. He's normally talkative and chipper, but he was really serious and matter-of-fact. There wasn't any of the normal joking."

The friends ended up meeting at the Okahu Bay boat ramp just before 9am.

"When I looked at him I could tell that he didn't look himself. He was unshaven, looking pretty tired and he looked physically stressed. He was pretty serious," Witness 70 told police.

"So I said to him, 'what's going on mate, you all right?"'

Callaghan didn't say anything, so Witness 70 asked him again.

"Then [Callaghan] said 'no, I'm in big trouble'. It took him a while to say anything. Then he said, 'I wouldn't be asking you if I didn't have to, but I really need your help'," Witness 70 told police.

"I said 'I'll help you if I can but I can't if you don't tell me what's going on'.

"Then he said 'I've killed Carmen'," according to the police statement.

Witness 70's first reaction was that his friend was kidding.

"But looking at him and the way he was acting, his serious nature, and just the way he was, I could tell obviously it wasn't a joke."

According to Witness 70, Callaghan said he couldn't go to the police. He told police that Callaghan said, "'I need your help. I need to get rid of the body.' I finally realised that he's down there at the marina with the body to get rid of it. That stunned me."

He asked why Callaghan didn't bury it. "And he said 'Mate, I've tried everything, I've been out every night this week trying'," according to his statement to police.

"I can't remember exactly what I said but something to the effect of 'is it here' or 'where is it', meaning Carmen's body, and [Callaghan] said 'it's in the car',"

Callaghan walked to the back of his Subaru wagon and opened the boot, according to his friend.

He pulled back a blanket and Witness 70 saw three Resene paint buckets. The buckets were inside black plastic bags and there was another container, like a "big fish bin", according to Witness 70.

He could see concrete inside the bags, buckets and large bin, "full to the brim".

"And that's when it sort of hit me what I was actually looking at. I started to freak out and then I remember feeling ill and just disbelief I guess," Witness 70 told police.

He then realised the body was in a busy marina in "broad daylight".

Witness 70 told Callaghan to shut the boot.

"I said to him "aren't the police going to know it's you or come to you?' or something like that."

According to Witness 70, Callaghan told him he was going to take Carmen's car to Hamilton. He also had Carmen's phone and was going to text her boss and friends "to make it look like she'd gone to Hamilton", according to Witness 70.

He said the pair decided to go somewhere quiet to move the buckets from the Subaru to the boat. They drove out of the Okahu Bay marina on to Tamaki Drive, then Watene Cres, before pulling into a carpark by an empty construction site.

Witness 70 said the buckets were heavy, maybe 20kg, while the larger fish bin took both men to lift into the back. "I would say it was over 50kg, easily."

The friends drove back to Okahu Bay to launch the boat.

"We hadn't really said anything more at this stage to each other. I felt like I'd been hit by a bus basically. I was still trying to digest exactly what was going on," Witness 70 told police.

The pair idled the boat out to where Witness 70's yacht was moored and started cleaning the yacht as planned earlier.

"While I was cleaning the boat down, I had a bit of time to myself to think and I made up my mind it wasn't going to happen. I wasn't going to help [Callaghan] with whatever it was that we had started, it was just craziness," Witness 70 told police.

The pair left the yacht and started the engine of the smaller boat, which held the body parts.

Witness 70 asked Callaghan what he wanted to do.

Callaghan suggested heading to the main shipping route Rangitoto island, according to Witness 70, who replied the channel would be too busy.

Then Callaghan suggested past Waiheke island, according to Witness 70, who replied the boat would run out of fuel.

"I said 'we can't do this, you know, it's crazy doing this in broad daylight, there's people around. The tide's wrong, the wind's wrong. What if they float, what if they don't sink?' ... or just whatever I could come up with to get out of it," said the police witness.

The friends smoked a few cigarettes and sat in silence for about 10 or 15 minutes.

"I finally said to him, 'it's not going to happen today'. I think I said to him 'let's do it later on in the evening, check the tides and see what it's like then'," Witness 70 told police.

"I had no intention of going out later on, I just wanted to get back into shore and get the stuff off my boat and have nothing more to do with it. I was just using any excuse I could."

The pair took the boat out of the water at Okahu Bay, with all the buckets and the fish bin still on board, according to the court file. They then drove around the Auckland waterfront, along Tamaki Drive, Quay St and through the Tank Farm industrial area.

But there were too many people around for the buckets to be put back in the Subaru, according to Witness 70. The friends ended up in the car park of the Herne Bay Women's Bowling Club, which was no longer used and was overgrown. The buckets and fish bin were placed back in the Subaru and Callaghan gave him some money to buy new cellphone sim cards, according to Witness 70.

"I still couldn't work up the nerve to tell him that I wasn't going to take him out. I didn't really know what to do or how to handle it."

The pair arranged to talk later on the new cellphones and, according to Witness 70, Callaghan was insistent on taking the boat out again that night.

"There was a lot of long silences and pauses and finally I said to him, 'I'm not doing this, I can't do it, I can't help you out, I'm sorry, I don't want to be involved'," Witness 70 told police.

"[Callaghan] didn't make a big fuss about it, just quietly accepted it, but he clearly was really disappointed."

Witness 70 texted Callaghan four days later but never heard back. He then went away on a family holiday until July 31. By that time, Carmen Thomas' disappearance was in the media. A few weeks later, Callaghan visited Witness 70 at his home with his partner Tanith Butler and son Jack to watch a Warriors league game.

"Nothing was mentioned about that Saturday, July 3. I just didn't want to talk about it anymore and I didn't want to know anymore. The less I knew the better," Witness 70 told police.

A few weeks later, on August 20, the police called Witness 70 to organise an interview. Callaghan was arrested and charged with Carmen Thomas' murder on September 22.

Her body was found buried in the Waitakere Ranges in the concrete containers on October 1. Post-mortem results in the police case, released to media by Justice Geoffrey Venning yesterday, revealed more grisly details.

Police allege Ms Thomas died from multiple blows to the head, with the fatal blow causing a fracture to her skull behind her right ear. The post-mortem also states that Ms Thomas was dismembered into eight pieces with a meat cleaver. The legs were severed from the torso at the hip, then again at the knee.

The arms and head were also severed. All the body parts were put into plastic bags, then encased in concrete in the paint buckets.

Callaghan is in custody at Mt Eden prison and is due to stand trial next February.

Evidence released

The police evidence against Brad Callaghan was released to the Weekend Herald after legal submissions from the media.

Callaghan has pleaded not guilty to murder and was committed to trial "on the papers" under new procedures without an oral hearing, formerly known as a depositions hearing.

This meant the media - and therefore the public - were unable to view the prima facie evidence against Callaghan.

Media, including Weekend Herald publisher APN, TVNZ, TV3 and Fairfax, made legal submissions to the High Court at Auckland to gain access to the court file.

Defence lawyer Stuart Grieve, QC, acknowledged there could be no objection to media access to evidence considered admissable at trial.

However, he was opposed to media viewing evidence that he planned to challenge as inadmissable.

This was to ensure his client's right to a fair trial. As a result, parts of witness statements were redacted (blacked out). Justice Geoffrey Venning ruled media could access much of the court file but not some exhibits because of privacy reasons.

Other suppressions are in place to protect the identity of witnesses.