Newstalk ZB
Less than two hours after she hit a stranger with her car on a residential South Auckland street - leaving the pedestrian fatally injured on the side of the road - Toni-Ashley Crawford appeared to be concentrating on a potential hook-up. “Can we huggle?” she texted with a smiley face emoji at 3.24am as she drove towards the love interest’s Pukekohe home, her windscreen smashed and a noticeable dent in her bonnet. But fury seemed not too far from the surface when the man blew her off, falsely claiming to have moved to Australia. “What the f***,” she wrote after trying to call him multiple times. “I nearly f***ing died coming to see you. “I’m starting to feel violence. I’m hoping to break into these houses and assault these f***ing strangers if u don’t stop being an egg to me.” It’s that same quickness to anger that might have prompted the 33-year-old to steer her speeding car towards pedestrian Teri Erueti Rhind earlier that morning, prosecutors suggested yesterday as Crawford’s murder trial began in the High Court at Auckland. Rhind, 37, died at Middlemore Hospital in October 2024, several days after he was found badly injured along Pukekohe’s Wellington Street. He had laid in the road unnoticed by anyone else for about 45 minutes, suffering substantial road rash, an indentation on his chest from broken ribs and a damaged vertebral artery that would eventually cut off blood flow and oxygen to his brain. The impact, caught on grainy black and white footage from a neighbour’s security camera, was played for jurors for the first time as Crown prosecutors Aysser Al-Janabi and Sylvie Arnerich gave an opening address. It showed, they said, the defendant initially driving past Rhind on an otherwise “unremarkable street” at almost exactly 2am before U-turning and driving over the speed limit at the stranger on the wrong side of the road. Upon contact, Rhind flew up into the air before crashing to the concrete, Al-Janabi told jurors. “Ms Crawford did not stop,” she added. “She accelerated away, and she drove away from the scene.” Crown prosecutor Aysser Al-Janabi. Photo / Michael Craig Rhind, who was suffering a mental health episode that morning, had been witnessed by others before the crash shouting as he went for a walk. While the defendant’s precise motive is unknown, perhaps Crawford’s blood began to boil when the pedestrian shouted something as she drove by, prosecutors speculated. Defence lawyers Ethan Butler and Kelly-Ann Stoikoff acknowledged their client was driving the vehicle as it fatally hit Rhind. But that doesn’t equate to murder, they said, noting that it was dark and there were cars lining both sides of the street. “This was an unfortunate, tragic accident when Mr Rhind came out of nowhere, wandering all over the road during one of his episodes,” Butler said during his opening statement, urging jurors not to make a snap judgment based on their first viewing of the CCTV footage. “The more you watch that clip, the more you will agree it was an accident and Toni Crawford is not guilty of murder.” Under court rules, the defence opening statement was much shorter than the Crown’s address, but the defence will get another chance to address jurors after prosecutors finish calling evidence. Prosecutors also suggested to jurors that a decision won’t be made solely on the CCTV. Crawford’s behaviour in the hours and days after the crash are also telling, Al-Janabi said. “My sexy love stop it please,” she wrote while still parked in the neighbourhood of the man who claimed to be in Australia. “I’m in trouble, okay. “I actually just wanted to come see you. I have mind works issues. I really need your help, okay?” Later that morning, still before sunrise, she went to another friend’s house and claimed to have hit a tree. But she was “antsy” and evasive when asked about her damaged car, at one point mention...
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