A man who says an associate confessed to abducting and killing a Sydney schoolgirl has denied lying, telling the jury he didn't want to take that information to his grave.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"Someone had to stand up for this little girl," Geoffrey Maurer testified in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday.
He said he went to police in 1999 "to get this off my shoulders" because he couldn't sleep at night and wanted to give the girl's family some type of closure.
Mr Maurer was cross-examined at the trial of Vinzent Tarantino, 52, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering Quanne Diec.
The 12-year-old, whose body has never been found, vanished on July 27, 1998, after leaving her Granville home to walk to the train station on her way to school.
Prosecutor Pat Barrett has alleged Tarantino picked her up in a white van, took her to his father's nearby home, strangled her and later disposed of her body.
Mr Maurer said Tarantino had phoned him wanting to meet, so he and his girlfriend drove to him and had a conversation in the car.
"He was very agitated and very upset. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong," he said.
Tarantino told him he had abducted "a little Asian girl", he said.
"He had taken the girl to extort some money from some type of dealer.
"He told me he got the wrong girl."
Mr Maurer said he was in shock, flabbergasted and "beside myself" after hearing the confession.
"He said that he killed her, she wouldn't shut up and he didn't mean to."
The witness said he was pretty sure Tarantino told him he buried her in a national park about one-and-a-half hours south.
Mr Maurer denied a suggestion by Tarintino's barrister, Belinda Rigg SC, that her client did not make the admissions and had not used the word "kill".
"He told me what happened up to the point where I was going to be sick," he replied.
Ms Rigg suggested Mr Maurer came to the view that Tarintino had something to do with it after hearing bits and pieces of information from others and knowing he had been in possession of a white van.
"No, he told me he did it," he replied.
Mr Maurer repeatedly denied her suggestions he gave a false account to police.
"This little girl went to school that morning and she didn't come home."
He said he didn't ask to be given the information and hadn't wanted it.
"I told the truth, the whole truth, because I have got nothing to gain by lying," Mr Maurer said.
He also denied a suggestion that drugs were mentioned in the car conversation, saying "there was no transaction at all".
The trial continues before Justice Robert Beech-Jones.
Australian Associated Press
