A Christchurch engineer denies supplying a young US polo star with drugs before she died in a spa pool two years ago.
During the first day of Joseph McGirr's trial, the Crown claimed he supplied 22-year-old Lauren Biddle with enough ecstasy to kill her, and after she had died he tried to get rid of evidence.
Biddle had only recently arrived in New Zealand when she died in a spa pool in the Christchurch suburb of Clifton. McGirr is alleged to have supplied her with ecstasy before she died and then tried to bury her clothes.
The Crown told the Christchurch District Court on Monday that Biddle was in the spa with the accused and two others drinking and smoking cannabis, and later snorting two lines of ecstasy. Biddle then died from a suspected drug-induced heart attack
The court heard McGirr allegedly stopped another person at the house from calling an ambulance, saying he didn't want police coming over to his property. He also allegedly threw her clothes and belongings down into an overgrown section and buried them.
The Crown says the deceased woman had around 15-times the normal amount of recreational levels of MDMA in her system.
McGirr denies the charges.
The trial is expected to last all week and the court has heard the accused will take the stand.
