CCTV vision showed David Benbow changed his clothes three times on the day the Crown alleges he murdered Michael McGrath.
The various sightings of him that day show he drove out of the city and visited different petrol stations three separate times over the day, twice to get petrol.
CCTV is a powerful tool for police and a Senior Constable spent a very long time examining it when investigating McGrath's disappearance.
"A number of hours, probably at least 500 hours, probably double that," said Senior Constable Danny Schaare on Tuesday.
What the jury in the High Court saw today was this: A car matching McGrath's blue Subaru heading away from his house toward Benbow's on the morning of the day the Crown alleges Benbow murdered him.
"I exhaustively reviewed the footage and believe the vehicle in the footage is the same attributes and is consistent with a blue 1994 Subaru legacy station wagon," Schaare said.
The car that police deemed to be McGrath's wasn't seen on CCTV again that day, but Benbow then had a very busy Monday which was played out to the jury via CCTV vision.
He drove toward town in his Toyota Camry, then visited three different petrol stations, and drove out of Christchurch towards Akaroa.
He got petrol twice for his car on that one day.
"At 11:30am, the defendant paid using his EFTPOS card for petrol at Challenge Halswell," said Schaare.
"CCTV footage was viewed from BP2GO Halswell."
He also had three different outfits on over that one day, including three different pairs of shoes.
"A pair of casual shoes, a pair of black lace-up work boots and black dress shoes," Schaare said.
The next day Benbow went back out of town the same way towards Akaroa, and he also visited the dump. We know police made extensive enquiries to find what Benbow dumped there but never discovered it.
But Benbow's defence team say they have engaged their own expert to review the CCTV.
"And the jury will hear from him during course of the defence case."
That defence case says Benbow didn't kill or even see McGrath on Monday caught on camera.
A body and a weapon were never found.
