Mark Lundy told police he averaged speeds of 140 to 160kmh after repeatedly failing to raise his wife on the phone on 30 August.
Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson
Mr Lundy, 56, is accused of murdering 38-year-old Christine Lundy and seven-year-old Amber Lundy, whose bodies were found in their Palmerston North home on 30 August 2000. The Crown claims Mr Lundy killed his wife for her insurance money and Amber because she saw what he was doing to her mother.
Key points from Day 28:
Detective Jennifer Curran yesterday read a statement she had taken from Mr Lundy on 30 and 31 August, in which he said he tried to ring his wife many times on the landline and mobile before starting to contact friends.
He got hold of one friend, who told him to get home as there had been some suspicious deaths in Palmerston North, and that police were at his house.
Ms Curran stopped him as he drove back into Palmerston North, and he later told her he averaged speeds of 140-160kmh on the drive from Wellington.
He said police told him it was "not good news" when they stopped him, and he remembered asking where Amber was.
He was told at the police station both Mrs Lundy and Amber were dead, and said he was devastated.
His statement to Ms Curran covered everything from the fact his wife like to sleep naked and read Mills and Boon books to their plans for a winery development. He also said the couple had a lot of friends, a good social life and that he got along with everybody; he liked to take people as he found them, he said.
However, he also told of an incident in the carpark of Palmerston North's K-Mart two to three weeks earlier in which a man called him a "f***ing a******" for taking a carpark. The man was a 35 to 40-year-old Caucasian who had children in the car with him during the incident, which had left Amber frightened, Mr Lundy said.
Early in the interview, Mr Lundy had confessed he had "been a bit of a naughty boy". Ms Curran asked what he meant, and he told her he had hired a prostitute the previous evening.
He then went on to talk about his sexual relationship with his wife, and said they had last had sex two to three weeks earlier.
Mr Lundy told Ms Curran he and his wife had a close relationship and would "gross nieces and nephews out with our public displays of affection". The couple always worked out their differences, he said.
The trial, before Justice Simon France and a seven-man, five-woman jury, is expected to wrap up before Easter.
*Clarification - For the avoidance of doubt, please note that Radio New Zealand reporter Sharon Lundy is no relation to Mark Lundy.
