Glen Eden V8 road rage murder trial: Hit and run or accident?

Steve Braunias reports on a murder trial of a man killed in an alleged hit and run

“Get back in the car,” said Marie Taateo to her partner Petunu Talitumu (“Everyone knew him as Tim”)
when he got out of their white Mazda in the Glenmall carpark in Glen Eden just after midday on November 23, 2022. A black Holden had pulled in front of them. Marie was driving the Mazda. She honked the horn, loud. She told the High Court of Auckland this afternoon the driver of the Holden, Brayden Towler, stuck his head out of his car window and yelled at her: “F*** up, or I’ll put a bullet through you.”

Road rage on a Wednesday two years ago in West Auckland. “Not guilty,” said Towler, and shook his head, when the charge of murder was read out on the opening day of his trial. The Crown alleges it was a hit and run. Towler admits he killed Talitumu. His lawyer, Adam Couchman, told the jury it was not intentional, that it was too late to stop when his Holden hit and killed Talitumu in Glen Eden, cause of death blunt force head injury.

“Get back in the car,” Marie said to Tim again. He had climbed onto the running board on the passenger side of the Mazda and held onto the railings on the roof. They followed the Holden out of the carpark. She said Tim was smiling.

They had left their Kelston home that morning to have a late breakfast. They stopped for a hot koko drink and a panikeke, then drove to Glenmall to order from their favourite bakery opposite a $2 shop. CCTV was played in courtroom 7 of the Holden pulling out in front of the Mazda, and Talitumu climbing onto the running board. Towler drove away, and Talitumu stepped off the Mazda. He stood on the pedestrian crossing.

Marie told the court, “Then the Holden did a hard turn, like a burn-out, like he did it with a handbrake, and it squealed. It was speeding. You could hear it.”

Crown prosecutor Claire Paterson said, “What were you hearing?”

“The engine,” she said. “It was either a V6 or a V8. He was putting his foot down hard on the accelerator.”

Her hands trembled in the witness box.

“It was driving on the wrong side of the road towards us and that’s when I knew what his intentions were – he was either coming for the car, or coming for Tim.”

In his opening address for the defence, Couchman said it was road rage coming in one direction – aimed at Towler, who was just trying to get away from the Mazda.

Marie said to Tim, one last time, “Get back in the car”. He looked at her, she told the jury, and then he was hit.

“His body was on the bonnet and his head was where the bumper was. It dragged him across the road to the bookshop and it looked like it smashed into the curb to get Tim’s body off the car.”

She cried, and Justice Pheroze Jagose said, “Would you like to take a break?”

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said.

She continued, “Tim fell off the car onto the ground. It sped off and didn’t stop to see if Tim was alive. Nothing. Just drove off.”

She saw he was lying on the ground and because he had his legs up she thought he might be okay. But when she got to him, his legs were down. She screamed for help. Two nurses ran across the road and checked his pulse. They said he was gone.

The Crown will call 36 witnesses, including passersby at the scene of the death, as well as police who found Towler’s car beneath a black tarpaulin with the back license plate missing. An expert from ESR will discuss her findings on glass fragments found in Tim’s hair. “It was an intentional killing,” Crown prosecutor Kristy Li said in her opening address, “or reckless killing”. Adam Couchman’s defence: “It was an accident.” The trial is set down for two weeks.