A Dunedin man has described finding his friend "soaked in blood" with a gaping wound in his throat.
In January last year, Gurjeet Singh, 27, was stabbed at least 46 times and there had seemingly been an attempt to decapitate him, the High Court at Dunedin heard this afternoon.
The Crown says the killer was 35-year-old Rajinder, a man who had previously employed the victim as a fibre-optic cable installer, and prosecutor Robin Bates said the evidence against him was compelling.
He told jurors they would see CCTV footage from just hours before the attack which showed Rajinder buying gloves from Bunnings Warehouse and a scarf and knife from Hunting & Fishing – items that were never found by police.
The scene examination turned up blood from several areas of Mr Singh’s home, as well as outside.
Critically, Mr Bates said, some of those samples analysed – including a hair found in the victim’s hand - could be attributed to the defendant with "extremely strong scientific certainty".
Blood on the upholstery of Rajinder’s car matched the DNA of Mr Singh, he said.
Counsel Katy Barker said it was clearly a case of murder but it made no sense for her client to have committed such extreme violence.
"There was no enmity between them, no animosity, no grievance," she said.
Mr Singh had returned to India in 2023, got married and was preparing for his new wife to join him in his Liberton home in February last year.
On January 28, he attended a pizza party with friends.
Dhruval Aery, who had previously lived with Mr Singh, told the court his mate was "in a good mood" at the gathering.
The next morning he sent the victim a message about using a concrete cutter before receiving a flurry of messages from another friend.
"He was panicking", Mr Aery said.
The man had not heard from Mr Singh and had also received a call from his new wife, voicing her concerns about his lack of contact.
Mr Aery promised he would head over to the victim’s Hilary St address and called 111 when confronted by the grisly scene.
There was a smashed window, a door ajar and Mr Singh on his back on the lawn.
An emergency services call-taker tried to talk Mr Aery through chest compressions but he quickly realised it was futile.
Mr Bates asked the witness how he knew the victim was dead.
"So there was a big cut on his throat and there was blood in it and he was soaked in blood. He wasn’t breathing and there was no movement at all," Mr Aery said.
"I was scared to go near him to be honest."
In the ensuing days police interviewed friend and workmates of Mr Singh.
Rajinder told officers he had taken his wife for a driving lesson to Mosgiel at about midnight on the evening of Mr Singh’s death.
But when he returned to speak again to police on February 5 that year, they had viewed CCTV footage which showed no such wound in the hours before the alleged murder.
Rajinder admitted he had lied, that he had sustained the injury from unloading a bike from his car during the late-night driving lesson.
He did not want to go to hospital for treatment because it would "make things complicated" in the light of Mr Singh’s death, he said.
By that stage, officers had some of the DNA results to hand, which suggested blood spots at the scene came from Rajinder.
The defendant said it was "impossible", he had not been at the victim’s home.
Ms Barker said Rajinder had lived in New Zealand since 2015 and had built a good life here. "This doesn’t make any sense at all that [he] would risk losing all that . . . by killing Mr Singh, a person he’d previously employed and was on good terms with," she said.
Ms Barker urged the jury to broaden their focus and consider the victim’s relationships with others
"Rajinder does not have to clear his name. He does not have to prove his innocence," she stressed.
The trial, before Justice Rachel Dunningham, is scheduled to run for three weeks.
