Murder trial told of engagement ring purchase
Two months after the death of her husband, Helen Elizabeth Milner was recorded as buying an engagement ring for $2299 at a Christchurch jewellery store, the fourth day of her murder trial has been told.
A tax invoice in Milner’s name was produced by the police officer who checked at the store in early 2012 as part of the investigation into the death of Phillip James Nisbet on May 4, 2009.
The purchase was made on July 12, 2009, at Michael Hill Jewellers at The Palms shopping centre in Shirley, retired officer Hugh McLachlan told Justice David Gendall and a jury in the High Court at Christchurch.
Milner denies two charges of attempting to murder her husband of four years on April 15, 2009, and murdering him the following month. The Crown alleges she poisoned him with the anti-allergy and sedative drug in his food and then smothered him as he lay unconscious in his bed. The defence says that the death was a suicide.
Joseph Gerard Power, a friend of Mr Nisbet, told the court that they had been flatmates, and he had found that he was positive about life. “He had a few knocks. He looked life in the face and carried on.”
He did not know that Mr Nisbet had anxiety attacks, had never seen him depressed, and did not believe it when he was told that he had committed suicide. “That didn’t sound like the guy I knew.”
Cross-examined, he said he had later been contacted by Mr Nisbet’s sister, Lee-Anne Cartier, who had asked if he knew anything more about the death, told him “there was another man on the scene”, and said she believed that Milner had murdered her husband.
Lee-Anne Cartier, a former Queensland resident, now living in Christchurch, told the trial her brother was happy and easy going. After she returned to Australia after the funeral, she said she was shocked to receive a phone call from Milner in late May, 2009, to say she had found a suicide note and other items.
Milner said her husband had been having affairs, had been sending flowers to someone every week, and had an instruction booklet from a former employer on how to be a male prostitute.
Miss Cartier said she believed her brother was not the sort of person to have affairs. He was shy, and would not have been able to lie to get away with it. She said Milner said she had a DNA test done which showed that Mr Nisbet’s son was not his son.
Milner told her of a male friend who had been sitting next to a woman at the funeral who said she was from Chertsey, and had been having an affair with Mr Nisbet.
When she returned to New Zealand in June, Milner showed her the suicide note which had a signature “Phil” written in ink. She looked at an exhibit at the trial, the suicide note that was handed to police, and said it was not the same note. It had no handwritten signature, and the wording was different – it was more “lovey-dovey, soppy”. She had seen that letter a few days before the inquest.
Miss Cartier had provided cards sent by Mr Nisbet, so that the handwriting could be compared, but there was no longer a signature.
She said the person Milner said had helped do the DNA testing told her he denied being involved.
The trial will continue at 9.30am on Friday.
Category: News
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