Chicken hoarding, meth and fake accent revealed in bizarre murder trial

Chicken hoarding and methamphetamine abuse appeared to have played roles in a rural South Auckland homicide in which a woman’s battered body was found doused in bleach and stuffed upside down in her abandoned vehicle. 

Details of the bizarre case have been made public for the first time as the trial began in the High Court at Auckland yesterday for Judith Rose Cunniffe’s alleged murderer, a 51-year-old man who continues to have interim name suppression. 

Cunniffe, a poultry enthusiast who was known to friends and family as Judy, was found dead on April 11 last year - one day after the 53-year-old had called 111 to report the defendant visiting her boarding house with his chicken-chasing dog when he wasn’t supposed to be there. 

Police went out to the property that same evening, deciding to conduct a brief search after a flatmate falsely claimed the defendant was no longer there. But they were unable to find him hiding under a bed in one of the seven bedrooms because of the filthy state of the rubbish-strewn residence, Crown prosecutor Jay Tausi told jurors during his opening address. 

The defendant beat Cunniffe to death during a confrontation at the residence later that evening, both sides agreed. 

In a phone call some time after the incident, the defendant explained to an associate that Cunniffe had “come out of the bushes” and started arguing with him about his dog, revealing that she had gone to police. 

“That’s when I started to nail her out, you know?” he said on the call, which was recorded. “I just smashed her.” 

But that didn’t mean prosecutors could prove murder, defence lawyer Sacha Norrie said during her opening statement, describing the Crown’s murder accusation as based on “theories, guesses and lies”. 

“He did not mean to kill her,” Norrie said of her client. “He says [that] he says sorry to her every day.” 

If jurors decline to find the defendant guilty of murder, they will also have the option of manslaughter, which is a homicide without murderous intent. 

Both sides described the scene of the killing as one that jurors might find confronting due to the conditions the residents were living in and the drug abuse that took place there. 

The 17-hectare property, about 2km from the main town centre, saw a steady turnover of tenants - most of whom were in their 50s and 60s and “lived complex and complicated lives” that included addiction, prosecutors said. The defence described the living conditions as “frankly horrifying”. 

Chicken enthusiast Judy Cunniffe died at a 17-hectare property where she lived with flatmates in Waiuku, South Auckland. Photo / Google 

“By all accounts, Ms Cunniffe was an animal lover with a particular propensity for collecting chickens,” Tausi said. “Over time, the chickens started to venture into the main body of the house and into some of the bedrooms.” 

By the time of her death, he added, her “love of chickens had gotten out of control” - probably fuelled in part by her methamphetamine addiction - to the point where she had “dozens and dozens” of the birds at the property. She made a habit of sleeping outside the home in her gold Toyota Corona, which she nicknamed “Coronavirus”, while the chickens stayed in two bedrooms of the house. 

On the day of Cunniffe’s death, the defendant had been visiting the address with another tenant after drinking with him in town that morning and early afternoon, authorities allege. Cunniffe returned home to find the defendant’s dog off his leash and chasing her chickens. 

“She said she would ring the police and get [the dog] put down,” Tausi said, explaining that she then made good on the threat - first driving to the police station then, after realising it was closed, calling 111 around 4.18pm. 

Staff at a nearby op-shop would later describe her demeanour as “anxious, walking back and forth and shaking”. 

Police searched the home around 5pm, looking for the defendant. Cunniffe returned home afterwards but stayed in her car, suspecting the defendant might still be there, prosecutors said. 

No witnesses saw the assault that happened several hours later, but another resident said he heard the defendant and Cunniffe arguing, with the defendant yelling, “F*** off.” A post-mortem exam would later reveal Cunniffe suffered fractures to her head, jaw, nasal wall and eye socket as well as cuts and bruises on various parts of her body, including what were characterised by authorities as “defensive wounds”. 

Although he then took steps to clean the scene, stuffing Cunniffe head-first into the footwell of her car and dousing her in bleach so that her floral-print dress was significantly faded, he was strangely upfront with her roommates about what had happened as they smoked methamphetamine together that same night. 

“[He] was telling them he had killed Ms Cunniffe,” Tausi told jurors. “They were all confused by the casual manner of [his] revelation, so much so that they were unsure if he was being serious.” 

The next morning, the defendant drove Cunniffe’s Toyota towards town during the morning rush hour and abandoned the vehicle between some bushes and tennis courts. A short time later, a woman with two young children in her car saw him trying to hitchhike and picked him up, concerned because he was stumbling. 

The motorist is expected to give evidence later in the trial stating that the defendant smelled strongly of alcohol and cleaning products, and he had mud and twigs on him. 

“He was also putting on an obviously fake European accent,” Tausi said. 

Word of the defendant’s alleged admissions to his acquaintances travelled quickly in the small town and police were alerted later that day. Cunniffe’s body was discovered, and he was arrested. 

A man with name suppression accused of murdering Judith Cunniffe in Waiuku in April 2025 appears in the High Court at Auckland. Photo / Michael Craig 

During a subsequent search of Cunniffe’s home, police found a blue torch outside that was smeared in Cunniffe’s blood, with the defendant’s palm print on it. Police also recovered the defendant’s jacket, which was stained with bleach spots, and found Cunniffe’s blood on the knee of his trousers. 

The case is certainly not a “whodunit”, the defendant’s lawyers acknowledged. They told jurors they would agree with most of the evidence prosecutors presented at the trial so that jurors could narrow their focus to the few parts that are in dispute. 

One area of disagreement is the Crown’s suggestion that the defendant used the torch to beat Cunniffe, Norrie said, noting that her client is “crystal clear” he only touched the implement after realising Cunniffe had died. 

“He accepts that aspects of his behaviour in Waiuku that day you could well feel [could] be described as unusual,” she said, adding that there “is no excuse” for the attack on Cunniffe. 

“But the Crown have got it wrong when they say it is murder,” she said, urging jurors to “stay laser focused on the charge at hand” rather than letting emotion taint their judgement. 

Cunniffe’s cause of death was determined by a pathologist to have been blunt force head trauma, but her own methamphetamine use was found to be a contributing factor because of the strain it put on her heart. 

The trial is expected to continue today before Justice Simon Mount 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.