KEY POINTS:
The Crown says a dispute dating back more than two decades was the motive for the fatal shooting of Hawke's Bay farmer Jack Nicholas.
Murray Kenneth Foreman, 50, of Haumoana, near Napier, is accused of the 2004 murder, and a second charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by asking his partner to make a false statement to police.
He is defending the charges.
The Crown alleges Foreman had a run-in with Mr Nicholas more than 20 years ago as he was denied access to his farm.
Witnesses would describe him as being "white and clammy" on the day of the shooting and would allege that he told them "he might have shot somebody", the court was told.
Crown Solicitor Russell Collins said Foreman had a long association with hunting and had acknowledged that he'd had a confrontation with Mr Nicholas in the past.
Mr Nicholas' widow has described finding her husband shot dead in the gateway of their rural Hawkes Bay property.
Agnes Nicholas told a Napier District Court depositions hearing today that she heard three gunshots about 6.30am on August 27, 2004.
Mrs Nicholas said: "It was a big gun. There were two (shots) in quick succession, then a pause, and I think one."
She told the court: "I thought 'what is he shooting a rabbit for with that gun. Why doesn't he take the .22'."
Her husband would often go shooting rabbits, wild cats and possums at the Puketitiri property, she said.
After remaining in bed for a time, Mrs Nicholas got up and left the house to find her husband of 37 years.
On arriving at a scrub fence, she saw Mr Nicholas "lying in the driveway"
She said: "He was lying on his back at a slight angle."
There was enough room between his feet and the fence for the sheep to walk past him."
She told the court she called his name twice, but he "just looked cold".
"I couldn't make it out... I could not see his gun. I knew that he had been shot.... There was a splash of blood by the hinge of the gate."
Mrs Nicholas then went back to the house to fetch two quilts to cover her husband.
"I touched his hand... and I felt his forehead. And then I saw the tear in his shirt... and I put the quilts over him," she said.
"It looked to me as if he was shot through the heart, and I thought that was very sad."
Poachers
Under cross examination by Foreman's lawyer Bruce Squire, Mrs Nicholas said her husband had had problems over the years with poachers and cannabis growers trespassing on the property.
It was not, however, a recent problem, and Mr Nicholas "usually" contacted police after finding cannabis crops, she said.
Mr Collins earlier told the Napier court Mr Nicholas was shot about 6.30am as he went to get the mail at his Makahu Valley home, about 90 minutes north west of Napier.
A total of three shots are understood to have been fired, one striking Mr Nicholas in the upper arm, breaking his humerous. Another - understood to be the third shot - hit him in the left side of the chest.
A 150-grain .308 calibre bullet was later found embedded in a hedge nearby, and two .308 cartridges were recovered about 40 metres from Mr Nicholas' body.
Neighbours will tell the court a car was heard leaving the valley in the moments after the killing, its engine running "at its maximum", Mr Collins said.
Mr Collins described the killing as "not well planned, and fraught with risk".
It was, however, "as determined as it was irrational".
Foreman, an employee of the Ravensdown Fertiliser works, on the Napier outskirts, was first spoken to by police in the days after the killing as investigators were checking those who held hunting permits for the nearby Kaweka Ranges.
At one stage he allegedly told police he was at work at the time of the killing, but checks with the company showed he was on leave.
He allegedly initially told police more than once that he did not own any firearms, and was at home on the morning - and the evening before - the August 27 killing.
It was later revealed he owned a number of weapons.
Foreman faces a charge of perverting the course of justice after allegedly telling his "on again, off again" partner to say he was with her at the time of the killing.
About 87 witnesses will be heard in the course of the depositions - about half are expected to give oral evidence.
The hearing, before Judge David McKegg, is set down for two weeks.
