One of the first officers at the scene on the day an unidentified body was found wrapped in plastic recalled today how she held on to the gruesome find for about 30 minutes to prevent it from being swept away by the tide.

“I could see a human hand ... and what seemed to be a human body folded in half,” Constable Chelsea Cruickshank told jurors during the second day of the manslaughter and kidnapping trial of accused religious sect leader Kaixiao Liu and his family.

Kaixiao Liu, his wife Lanyue Xiao and his parents Xiuyun Li and Jingui Liu have all pleaded not guilty. They’ve opted to represent themselves during the trial, which is scheduled to take up to seven weeks in the High Court at Auckland.

The body discovered in the water that morning was eventually identified as 70-year-old Chinese citizen Shulai Wang, who prosecutors said flew to New Zealand to receive religious instruction from Kaixiao Liu while living at his Ōrewa home with five other women who had immigrated from China for similar purposes.

The sect was called “The Ark” and Wang had somehow found herself targeted after joining, prosecutors said during their opening address yesterday.

The alleged punishments included locking her in a tent at the property, physical discipline, withholding food and being called “evil” by Kaixiao Liu.

Prosecutors have said detectives connected Wang to the group via two 10kg SunRice bags that were filled with paving stones and recovered with her body. The serial numbers on the bags were traced to an Albany Pak’nSave, where it is alleged Kaixiao Liu purchased the rice weeks before the body was found.

Alleged sect leader Kaixiao Liu (from left), his wife Lanyue Xiao, his father Jingui Liu and mother Xiuyun Li are all on trial in the High Court at Auckland accused of participating in the homicide of 70-year-old Shulai Wang. Photos / Jason Dorday

In court today, Cruickshank explained how she had been directed to the scene after a fisherman called 111. He had torn a roughly 15cm hole in the bag to see what was inside but abandoned the effort after noticing Wang’s hand.

“He pointed down to the rocks to us, where he had caught the bag with the human hand,” she testified. “The black rubbish bag was half in the water and half caught on the rocks.”

Wanting to disturb the scene as little as possible, the officer waited 30 minutes for a boat unit to arrive with a stretcher to lift the discovery from the water.

“It looked as if the body was folded into the foetal position,” she said, adding that the body seemed to be bound in black tape and covered in plastic rubbish bags. “It was tightly secured around the body, almost like it was vacuum-sealed.”

The body of Shulai Wang, 70, was found in Auckland's Gulf Harbour wrapped in plastic. Photo / New Zealand Police

Because he is representing himself, Kaixiao Liu was able to cross-examine the officer himself after prosecutors Emma Kerr and Henry Steele finished with their questions.

“Were you scared when you saw that scene?” the defendant asked.

The officer said she wasn’t. Although she’d never encountered a body in a bag before, she’d seen plenty of deceased bodies, she explained to him.

“Why did not other male colleagues do this for you?” the defendant followed up.

Kaixio Liu (left) and wife Lanyue Xiao appear in the North Shore District Court on July 1, 2024. They are now on trial for manslaughter alongside Liu's parents. Photo / Dean Purcell

“Because I just did it. I didn’t mind,” the officer said.

The defendant asked about the positioning of the body, which jurors were handed photos of.

“It looks like they tried very hard to hide it, the way it was wrapped up in duct tape and folded in half,” the officer said.

Jurors also heard from North Shore resident Gareth Bennett, who had been walking his dog in the area at around 8pm the previous evening when he saw something floating in the water. It was black plastic and appeared to be partially submerged, with a corner about the size of two rugby balls exposed, he said.

“It aroused my suspicion,” he said. “I stopped and watched the object float away from the gully ... for three or four minutes.”

He then went home but contacted police the following day after learning that a body had been discovered.

The trial continues before Justice Mathew Downs and the jury.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.