A man accused of murdering a Perthshire jeweller allegedly tried to sell the dead man’s car at a knock-down price the same day police found the body, a jury’s been told.
Nikola Zhulev also tried to dispose of gold jewellery and camera equipment he is alleged to have stolen from Alan Gardner’s home in Balbeggie, witnesses at the High Court in Livingston have claimed.
Bulgarian national Zhulev, 30, a prisoner at Perth, denies murdering Mr Gardner by hitting him on the head with a frying pan and plotting to dispose of the body in a woodland grave.
He also denies the thefts, pawning jewellery, using the dead man’s credt cards to order takeaway meals and drugs offences.
Former drug addict Kirsten Goodfellow, 24, from Craigie in Perth, told how her friend Mark Griffin had brought Zhulev to a heroin dealer’s house she was frequenting and asked her to put him up for the night.
She said: “He (the accused) had nowhere to stay and he was walking the streets. I said he could stay for a night until he went to his place in Balbeggie. He came up to my house about 2 o’clock in the morning.
“He just said that he had a good friend in Balbeggie and he was going to let him stay. He said thank you and left my flat in the morning.”
She told the jury she saw the accused, who she knew as ‘Nico’ maybe twice afterwards.
She said: “The next time was when he came up to the property that I was frequenting and spoke to Mark in the hall. Basically he came back with three rings.
“I seen him give Mark the rings. I seen the exchange but I didn’t hear what had been going on. I was just being nosy, it was gold.
“When he (Zhulev) left the flat I said to Mark: ‘Do you want me to look after them for safekeeping?’ That’s why I got them. I handed them back to the police.”
She identified two rings, an engagement ring and an eternity ring, which were passed tound members of the jury for inspection.
At their second meeting a few days later, Zhulev was trying to sell the car.
She said: “I just stood and watched. He said he was selling it for a friend, but he tripped up when he said he needed the money.
“He was trying to sell the car for 500. It was a blue jeep it had a wheel cover on the back. He said it was in his name.”
She identified Mr Gardner’s Toyota RAV4 as the vehicle Zhulev had been trying to sell to her friend Mark Griffin.
Miroslav Sirakova, a Bulgarian friend of the accused, said Zhulev had offered to sell him a camera and a camcorder for cash but didn’t buy them because he suspected they might have been stolen.
Zhulev’s friend Patel Velev, 29, said the accused had called him to go with him by car and collect some luggage in Crieff on April 20 last year.
He said: “That was when he told me he bought the car from Alan. At that time I thought it was Nico’s because he told me that he’d bought it.”
On Thursday 23 April, he said Zhulev arrived at his home and asked for £40-50. He said he didn’t have the cash to give him.
Under cross-examination he confrmed that the accused had bought a red Seat car from Alan earlier that year and was paying it up by instalments.
He also told the jury that Mr Garnder had hired him and Zhulev to clear out his attic and sell some of his possessions at a car boot dale.
Mitchell Fauld, 25, tractor driver for a farm between Perth and Blairgowrie alerted the police after he saw Mr Gardner’s blue Toyota parked in a wood.
The vehicle was just off the A93 on a road heading towards Saint Martin’s, Perthshire, opposite the field he was working.
He said: “It’s a dumping area, usually folk dump rubbish. The colour of the car stood out in the wood. It was reversed in at a funny kind of angle at the top end of the track.
The trial continues.