Pictures have emerged of convicted killer Paul Russell Wilson travelling to the house of Nicole Tuxford before he raped and murdered her.
Last year, Wilson raped, tortured and killed Tuxford at her Merivale property, where he had waited overnight for her to return home.
- The butcher's knives that should have alerted police to Nicole Tuxford's murder
- Murderer waited eight hours at Nicole Tuxford's home before brutally murdering her
- Revealed: David Bain's groomsman a double murderer
- Merivale double-murderer Paul Tainui sentenced to a minimum 28 years
He has since changed his name to Paul Tainui, but after talking to his victims' families, Newshub has decided to use his original name.
Photos provided to Newshub show Wilson smiling in a taxi on his way to the property just after being released by police, who had stopped him at a drink-drive checkpoint and found butcher's knives in his car.
Police first noticed him stopping well before the booze bus and reversing into a car park, but eventually pulled him over.
An officer checked his profile on the police system, and even though he had changed his name to Tainui, his record came up.
A police note obtained by Newshub says: "It was noted he had a prior conviction for murder with a sharp cutting weapon."
After blowing well over the alcohol limit, he was told he needed to give the officers his keys and get a taxi.
Wilson had been on parole at the time after having been imprisoned for killing his former girlfriend, 21-year-old Kimberly Schroeder in Hokitika in 1994. A drink-driving charge would have been an issue for him.
But Wilson also admitted to police he had knives in his car and said he needed them for work, to which an officer said that "considering your criminal history, that is not a good idea". Wilson was then told to keep them in the car.
The man was then let go as police say they accepted his explanation for the knives. The parole board said the knives could have been cause for Wilson to have been recalled.
There doesn't need to be an arrest for that to occur, just an undue risk to the safety of the community.
Tuxford's mother, Cherie Gillatt, told Newshub it was horrible that police had pulled him up for the knives, yet he was still let go.
"The fact that the police pulled him for that and they still let him get away when he had murdered somebody else using knives. And they looked at it and think it was okay to let him go. It fricking wasn't okay," she said.
Tuxford's family is taking the case to the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
Newshub.
