Jeremy Powell, who is serving a prison sentence for Angela Blackmoore's murder gave evidence at the High Court in Christchurch on Wednesday. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
A man jailed for murdering Christchurch woman Angela Blackmoore has told the High Court David Hawken threatened to kill his family if he did not commit the crime.
Hawken and Rebecca Wright-Meldrum are on trial for the 1995 murder of Blackmoore, who was bludgeoned and stabbed 39 times in her Wainoni home while her two-year-old son slept in a nearby room.
Jeremy Powell confessed to Blackmoore's murder in 2019 and on Wednesday appeared as a Crown witness, when he told the court Hawken offered him and Wright-Meldrum $10,000 for Blackmoore's murder.
"It was more money than I could ever imagine back then. It seemed like a huge amount," Powell said.
Powell said Hawken also threatened to kill his family if he did not murder Blackmoore, and he took the warning seriously.
"I knew I he had gang connections. I believed he had done six murders up north. He was a very scary guy," Powell said.
Powell said he killed Blackmoore several days later and felt panicked before, during and after her murder.
He said he did not have a detailed recollection of it.
"I remember hitting her two or three times with a bat, I remember the bat breaking," Powell said.
Powell said he hit her with a bat first because he wanted to knock her out "so that she wouldn't feel anything".
"I didn't want to hurt her," he said.
Powell said Hawken never paid him after the killing.
Hawken's defence lawyer Anne Stevens KC argued Powell killed Blackmoore for his own satisfaction.
She put it to Powell that he had invented Hawken's involvement to avoid taking the blame for her death.
"You're saying this man contracted you to kill a woman you barely knew?" she asked.
"Yes," Powell replied.
"I suggest that did not happen, and that you have made that up to minimise your involvement - to blame somebody else for why you killed a woman in her own home in her kitchen," Stevens said.
Powell denied this, and responded saying he accepted full blame for the killing.
He agreed it was a cruel act and that Blackmoore died in terrible circumstances.
The trial continues.
