Murder defendants Kasha William Gosset and Cody Derek Martin accused each other of firing the fatal shots in separate video interviews with the police after the killing of Bradley Alan Lomax.
Lomax was shot to death on the Waimakariri Riverbed near Kaiapoi on September 4, 2017, hit by .22 rifle shots and shotgun blasts according to the evidence of forensic pathologists.
The pair were found and interviewed about a week after the killing, each blaming the other for a killing the Crown described as an “execution” in its opening address to the trial in the High Court at Christchurch last week. Today was the trial’s seventh day before Justice Cameron Mander and a jury.
Gosset, 37, of Oxford, and Martin, a 31-year-old drainlayer from Mairehau, both deny the joint charge of murdering Lomax.
Justice Mander told the jury before each video was played that their statements and interviews could only be used as evidence against themselves, and the contents could not be considered in relation to the other defendant.
Detective Wayne Boyd, of the Canterbury Organised Crime Unit, said he had seen Martin in Christchurch Hospital where he was recovering from a dog bite wound to the leg which he had received at the time of his arrest at a Papanui property on September 9, five days after the shooting.
The detective returned two days later and recorded a video interview in the presence of Martin’s defence counsel, Josh Lucas.
Martin said he thought they were going to give Lomax a “rark up” over his treatment of a woman who had been seen with bruises on her face.
They picked him up and drove to the Waimakariri. Martin said Lomax was in the back seat, Gosset was driving, and he was in the passenger seat.
At the riverbed, they got out of the car and he thought they were going to give Lomax “a bit of a scare” but Lomax advanced towards him “with an angry face”. Martin said he did not know if the gun he was holding was loaded, but he pulled the trigger, hitting Lomax in the knee.
Gosset then fired a .22 Ruger semi-automatic into Lomax’s head. Lomax was still alive so Gosset then took the shotgun and fired two shots into Lomax’s head, reloading the gun in the process.
Before the interview began, Martin told him that Lomax had been using 1g to 2g of methamphetamine a day and owed the gangs about $30,000 in drug debts.
Martin also commented about Gosset: “He will be out of control. He thinks he’s the biggest man in Christchurch. Off his face.” He said that Gosset had previously said he wanted to kill Lomax, but he had thought he was joking.
Detective Timothy Sterne, of the Christchurch Criminal Investigation Branch, said he took custody of Gosset after he was apprehended at a motorcycle dealership in Christchurch on September 11. He was calm and talkative and said he wanted to talk to police about “important matters”. He described Lomax as “someone who bashed single mothers”.
At the police station, he conducted a two-hour video interview in which Gosset admitted taking part in the murder of Lomax.
Gosset began by saying Lomax was a “low level meth user and dealer” who preyed on women. “He was a total waste of space as far as I was concerned.”
Gosset said Martin had taken the shotgun and the .22 rifle on the drive to the Waimakariri. He and Lomax jumped out when he stopped the car to check the water. He said Martin had shot Lomax in the head a couple of times with the .22 and then shot him with the shotgun in the legs. Martin had then fired more shots with the .22 and then “finished him off” at almost point blank range with the shotgun.
He said: “I didn’t have any gun. Cody had the guns.”
The trial is continuing and is expected to finish next week.
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