May 14, 2013

Shouting in court as Roper found guilty of murder

By David Clarkson. Roper murder trial, Day 7. Nikki Roper has begun his life term for murder still making threats to people in court after being found guilty of killing 21-year-old Alexsis Maria Tovizi.

He had to be restrained and removed from court after shouting obscenities and trying to reach a man in the public seating who was shouting back. That man was also made to leave court.

Roper was brought back into the Christchurch High Court to be remanded for sentencing and as he was taken away he called to the gallery: ?Just remember what happens when you nark on the Mongrel Mob, eh??

He smiled in the dock when the murder verdict was delivered on the seventh day of the trial before Justice Forrest Miller.

Roper, 24, had an overwhelming obsession with a woman and a nasty habit of strangling people. It has all led inevitably to a life sentence for murder.

Miss Tovizi?struggled with binge drinking in the past, but?she wanted to ?rescue? people and was studying for a social work qualification.

The jury took four-and-a-half hours to return its guilty verdict on the seventh day of the trial in the High Court at Christchurch before Justice Forrest Miller.

Miss Tovizi?s family members shouted ?Yes? and ?Thank God? as the murder verdict was delivered and hugged each other.

Roper was remanded in custody for sentencing on July 3.

The details of Miss Tovizi?s death have emerged slowly, grudgingly from the police inquiries. The Crown says Roper strangled her with a sleeper or carotid hold, and may have also drowned her in a pot though it dismisses his claim of the drowning being a suicide attempt as being ?ridiculous?.

The defence had to say he was a liar. That had to be their stance in a situation where 24-year-old Roper had repeatedly and enthusiastically confessed ? to people he knew, to inmates in prison, to the police.

So why all the confessions? Perhaps this was a skinny, young, white guy with glasses who aspired to membership of the Mongrel Mob. Witnesses referred to his gang connections. Being a killer might have been seen as being good for his cred.

The post mortem supported both the possible causes of death, that he had killed her in a choker hold around the neck, or his claim that she had tried to commit suicide by drowning herself in a pot of water. Roper?s account was that she had held his hand pressing on the back of her own head, and when she stopped pushing, he had continued.

The Crown was also able to put before the jury evidence about Roper having choked Miss Tovizi in three earlier attacks, and doing prison time for at least one of them. Another woman told of him choking her during sex ? rough treatment that led to the instant end to their relationship after four days.

The Crown said Roper had killed Miss Tovizi because he was obsessed with her and was angry and vengeful about his rejection in favour of another man she was going to get engaged to.

Late on the night of her death, he telephoned a woman at the house?where he wanted to stay, asking her to leave the door open because he was walking home. During that conversation, he may have told her the beginnings of the truth. He said he and Miss Tovizi had argued and she had chosen the other man ? Daniel Edwards ? over him and they were ?over for good?.

The exact cause of death, apart from general agreement about pulmonary edema ? fluid in the lungs from asphyxia or possible drowning ? but a key to the case possibly emerged from a small bruise on the left side of her neck.

It was small linear bruise, in line with her jaw, and it was said to have a ?regular repeating pattern?, such as from a chain necklace, as though the jewellery had been pressed into the neck in a strangulation hold. She was not found wearing a necklace but the Crown produced photographs showing that she did wear them.

The defence raised the suggestion that she could have died from an alcohol-related seizure, but Crown experts said that was unusual and unlikely in a woman of her age and with her short history of drinking. There was evidence of her consumption declining before her death.

The jury also found Roper guilty on charges of unlawfully taking Miss Tovizi?s car, stealing her laptop, and five charges of dishonestly using her bankcard after her death.

Roper will do his prison time with the name of the woman he was convicted of murdering, tattooed on his face. He had the name put there shortly before her death.