Upper Clutha resident David Hawken (50) is on trial in the Christchurch High Court this week for alleged involvement in the cold murder case of Angela Blackmoore in 1995.

David has been part of the Upper Clutha community for many years.

He has supplied firewood; been a volunteer at Kahu Youth; and co-organised the Snowdrifta initiative, which took snow from a local skifield to Wānaka early childhood learning centres in the early 2000s.

He has lived quietly in this area for the past few years, after being arrested in May 2020 at his then Wānaka home.

His life here appears to have been a far cry from his life before the Blackmoore case.

At that time, the 1990s, he was a debt collector and gang associate living in Christchurch. He knew Blackmoore through her ex-husband, who was his childhood friend.

When Angela Blackmoore (21) was brutally murdered at her home on August 17, 1995, David told police he was at home with his pregnant partner.

He was considered a “person of interest” by police and was interviewed many times. 

It wasn’t until 2019 - when police offered a $100,000 reward for information on the cold case following an investigation by media organisation Stuff - that Jeremy Powell confessed to the murder and implicated David and a second person, Rebecca Wright-Meldrum.

In 2020 Powell was sentenced to a minimum of ten years in prison.

David has denied any part in Blackmoore’s murder; he and Wright-Meldrum have pleaded not guilty at the high court trial. 

The trial began on Monday (May 1) and NZME reported yesterday (Tuesday) that the Crown told the court David ordered a contract killing of Angela Blackmore to free up a property deal.

The Crown alleges that David offered Powell and Wright-Meldrum $10,000 for the killing.

The trial is expected to take four weeks.