Two drug dealers screamed out and pleaded for their lives from inside a toolbox as it was pushed into a creek before they died, a court has been told.

February 5, 2020

Two drug dealers locked in a toolbox screamed and pleaded for their lives as they were pushed into a creek where they died, a court has been told.

Cory Breton and Iuliana Triscaru’s decomposing bodies were found inside the large metal box after police pulled it from a creek south of Brisbane.

Tuhirangi-Thomas Tahiata, 28, denies murdering the pair but prosecutor David Meredith says he drove the pair inside the box to Scrubby Creek beside the Logan Motorway on January 24, 2016.

“He then got out of the car and helped drag it off,” he told the Brisbane Supreme Court in his opening address.

“He could hear both people yelling … ‘get me out of here … get me out of here’.”

Another man then allegedly pushed the box into the water and said “it’s time to die” but it failed to sink.

Tahiata then allegedly handed him a claw hammer so he could punch holes in the box to help it sink, Mr Meredith said.

His actions were a “breathtakingly evil act” that encouraged the other man to cause the death of Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru, he said.

Mr Meredith said Tahiata barely knew Ms Triscaru and didn’t know Mr Breton at all.

He murdered them because he was asked to, not because he had a motive himself, Mr Meredith said.

Tahiata initially denied involvement in the killings to detectives but on February 10 confessed and took officers to the site.

The following day, police used a mobile crane to pull the box from the water.

The court heard Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru either drowned or suffocated.

The trial continues on Wednesday.