A woman heard banging from the inside of a toolbox before it was dumped in a lagoon with two drug dealers inside, a Brisbane murder trial has heard.

February 10, 2020

A neighbour heard loud suspicious banging from the inside of a toolbox before it was dumped in a lagoon with two drug dealers inside, a court has been told.

Cory Breton and Iuliana Triscaru’s decomposing bodies were found in a large metal box in February 2016 at Scrubby Creek, south of Brisbane.

Tuhirangi-Thomas Tahiata, 28, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the pair after they were lured to a townhouse in Kingston 18 days earlier.

But Jahquita Rewa Mareikura Halbert told the Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday she heard banging from a toolbox on the back of a ute in the unit complex.

“I was waiting for this sedan to get out of my carpark and was sitting on my bonnet

“As the ute slowly drove out of the carport the noise from the toolbox, banging, was getting louder and louder,” she said.

“Weird banging … I was suspicious.”

Prosecutor David Meredith has previously told the trial Tahiata’s green Toyota Hilux ute was used to transport the toolbox with Cory Breton and Iuliana Triscaru still alive inside to the waterway beside the Logan Motorway.

Ms Halbert described seeing the same ute on January 24, the day the pair disappeared.

“It had a bullbar on it with a teddy,” she said.

Earlier, Mr Meredith told the jury that after Tahiata helped load the toolbox on his ute, he and a man named Trent Thrupp drove to the nearby creek.

Tahiata allegedly then helped carry the box to the shore as Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru screamed for help from within.

Thrupp then pushed the toolbox into the water but it didn’t immediately sink, Mr Meredith said.

He said Tahiata then handed Thrupp a hammer so he could punch holes into the side of the box.

The trial continues.