The man involved in a conspiracy to murder a landlord told police of a plot to "make them disappear forever".
By Finn Blackwell of RNZ
The confession was filed away and not looked at until after another alleged murder two months later.
Lok Fung Lorrence Li is on trial in the High Court at Auckland.
He's charged with the murders of Auckland Couple Fuk-Fu Joseph Kwok and Mei Han Chong in their Ellerslie home.
He is also accused of plotting to murder his former landlord.
The court has heard Li's alleged co-conspirator, Shu Man Poon, had gone to leaders at his church telling them he was being pressured by Li to take part a murder plot against Li's former landlord.
Poon was taking part in the plan to clear his $7000 debt to Li, the court heard.
He pleaded guilty last year to his role in the Kwok killings.
Pastor Chan from the duos church gave evidence at Li's trial on Friday morning.
He said Poon had told him the plan was to steal the target's bank cards, cash out and then kill them.
"According to my memory, the whole plan is Shu Man Poon being asked by Lorrence, that 'you can't pay me the debt, you need to help me to do something'," he said.
The pastor was questioned by Li's defence lawyer Paul Dacre KC who showed him an acknowledgement of debt that suggested it was actually Li who was in debt to Poon.
Chan said it was his understanding the debt was the other way around.
GPS tag tracked former landlord back to her home
Poon had told Chan he and Li had used a GPS tag to track his former landlord back to her home.
Chan had initially thought the plot was a fantasy, he said, but then Poon showed him a BB-gun and a tomahawk style axe.
He had also pulled out a Chinese nine-section-whip, commonly used in martial arts, something he and Li were passionate about.
Chan urged Poon to go to the police, and he and another pastor drove him to the Auckland City station.
The court later heard from Simran Chadha, the police staffer working the front desk when Poon came in to the station.
She said Poon had told her about his debt to Li, and that he was asking Poon for a favour.
'Disappear forever'
"It came to my understanding that it was an attempt to kill them," Chadha said.
"The words that he had used were 'disappear forever'..."
Chadha told the court she asked Poon for evidence, including messages between the pair.
Poon had told her the WhatsApp messages about the plan were on a 24-hour disappearing cycle.
"He was quite unsettled, he seemed to be having a mental health episode at the time as well," she said.
Poon had also mentioned he wanted to kill himself, Chada said.
"He was quite hysterical as well," she said
Chadha sought advice from a sworn police officer also at the station.
"I still took down my notes, still did everything I would for a general report, while also having to address the mental health episode side by side," she said.
Chadha believed what Poon was saying had truth to it, but the priority became helping him with his growing mental distress.
A number of times during the night Poon clutched his head and cried out in pain, Chadha said.
Chadha had both Poon and Li's details, but did not take details from the two pastors, she told Li's lawyer.
She spoke with an on-duty crime squad detective sergeant who told her to take the report and submit it as an information report.
Chadha could not remember who that was.
She completed her report on the night and sent it to her supervisor, she told the court.
Detective Inspector Scott Beard asked to explain
The court was told by Detective Inspector Scott Beard, who was the senior investigator in the Kwok's murder, that supervisor was on leave at the time.
He said the report was cut-short by Poon's mental health episode.
"Any individual suffering from mental health issues within police care, the safety and the welfare of that individual becomes the first priority," Beard said.
An internal investigation was carried out into why the report wasn't followed up, Beard said.
"What happened was, the information was reported [...] it was then assigned to the front counter officer's supervisor.
"That supervisor was on annual leave, and didn't come back until six days later, and then when reading that, made the assessment to file the matter," Beard said.
He was asked by Crown lawyer Alysha McClintock if that had been the wrong assessment.
"Yes," Beard said.
'No body recalled being spoken to'
Beard said part of the internal review spoke to all the criminal investigation branch, crime squad and night shift staff, apart from one acting-detective sergeant who had resigned and left the country.
"No body recalled being spoken to, and there was no information in any notebooks about being spoken to."
There was now a new process for front counter staff handling reports of serious crime, Beard said.
"When they deal with information that relates to violence or threat to property, that they immediately assign it to the appropriate criminal investigation branch team," he said.
"If they are speaking to a member of the criminal investigation branch, they obtain their name, and they put that in the information, so that we can speak to that person and identify them."
If a supervisor is on leave, it was then assigned to the incoming supervisor on the next shift, Beard said.
The trial continues.
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