Trial opens window to city’s drug scene on Home Services

Mar

Trial opens window to city’s drug scene

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Satisfying the ready market for cannabis brought together Tony Stanlake, and Daniel Moore, the son of one of his closest friends.
Thousands of police hours were spent unravelling the mystery of Mr Stanlakes death.
In the end it seemed to come down to greed and arrogance. Both men liked making money. But Mr Stanlake liked keeping it and Moore, the good-looking young street dealer, liked spending it.
Mr Stanlake, 62, was teaching his business partner to grow cannabis hydroponically, overseeing two growing rooms in the Miramar house Moore rented and tending a crop in his Karori home.
Without apparently needing to stray outside his circle of friends and acquaintances to sell the harvest, Moore should have been flush with cash but it did not match his spending.
At the end of a four-week trial on Saturday, a jury decided the Crown had proved its theory that Moore wanted to eliminate the senior partner and take over the business.
Growing three crops of six plants each year could return more than $100,000. For Daniel Moore, it was enough to kill for. He bashed the older mans head in, and cut his throat to finish him off. Later, he removed Mr Stanlakes hands.
Then Moore coolly did some drug deals and continued socialising and womanising like before.
DESCENT TO DARKNESS
1995: Tony Stanlake hurts his back and later retires as a fireman, receiving ACC.
2001: Mr Stanlake convicted of cultivating cannabis and is fined $10,000 - which he pays out of his fire service superannuation.
2002: Moore, aged 17, holds up a dairy wearing a Halloween mask and brandishing a plastic gun. He is sentenced to 18 months prison.
2005: Mr Stanlake and Moore form a business relationship, growing and distributing cannabis.
2006:
July 6: Moore lures Mr Stanlake to his Miramar home and kills him. He then goes out and sells drugs, takes LSD and stays up all night.
July 7: Moore buys his friends brunch, smokes cannabis on Mt Victoria, goes shopping.
July 8: Moore buys an axe, tarpaulin, carpets and rugs, cleaning products and packing ties. He drives to Red Rocks and throws Mr Stanlakes body into the surf. His car gets stuck and he needs a tow.
July 9: A handless body is found washed up at Red Rocks. Moore spends that day buying an iPod, furniture, towels, brooms, rubbish bags, carpet cleaner and hair dye.
July 10: Moore buys incinerator.
July 11: Moore cleans his car and stashes murder weapons and other evidence at friends houses. He asks a friend to dye his hair. Visits friend Peter Leach at work and hands over a %26quot;rancid-smelling package%26quot;. Moore tells him it contains Mr Stanlakes hands. Leach throws the package into a work rubbish skip.
July 12: Moore and Leach drop items at tip. Moore arrested.
July 20: Leach arrested and charged with assisting Moore to enable him to avoid conviction.
Aug 28: Leach pleads guilty to being accessory after the murder.
Oct 27: Leach sentenced to 15 months jail.
2007:
Jan 23: Moores depositions hearing begins, resumes in May and in July he is committed for trial.
Sept: Images of Leach in a butchers apron and one of a cleaver and severed hands appear on his Bebo social networking site.
2008:
Feb 4: Moores trial begins in High Court at Wellington.
Feb 29: Moore convicted of murder.