Sexual activity, drug-smoking and a ?certain suggestion? preceded Andre Kirk Everett Hypolite?s stabbing to death of Nicholas Dill on Boxing Day, 2004, a prosecutor charged yesterday.

Giving her opening statement in the Supreme Court murder trial of Hypolite, Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrossen told the jury that hours before his death, Mr. Dill took drugs at his Pearman?s Hill, Warwick home with Stacey Ann Pike and the man accused of his murder.

?These three engaged in drug consumption and sexual activity until the early hours of the morning,? Ms Vaucrossen said. ?The defendant made a certain suggestion to the deceased, which was denied. After the denial the defendant took the knife and stabbed the deceased. A struggle between Dill and the deceased ensued during which Stacey Pike tried to stop it but as she did this, she was injured.?

The noise from the furious struggle caused Mr. Dill?s family in a nearby home to call the Police, she said.

When the people inside the house were told the Police were on their way, Hypolite fled the scene, she said.

Mr. Dill was taken by ambulance to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, she said, but died shortly before mid-day and Hypolite was arrested three days later.

She said an unnamed man also smoked drugs with Hypolite, Ms Pike and Mr. Dill that night but left before the sex or deadly struggle took place.

Hypolite, 33, of no fixed abode, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr. Dill and to wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm to Ms Pike.

?The Crown says the defendant committed a volatile and committed act which resulted in the death of Nicholas Dill and he had no valid justification for doing so,? Ms Vaucrossen told the six-man, six-woman jury. ?I caution you, some of the evidence is of a somewhat unsavoury nature which may be contrary to your own moral standards.

?The nature of the evidence centres around the drugs subculture of Bermuda,? she added.

?It will open your eyes with ?It will open your eyes with respect to the behaviours of drug users in Bermuda. You must not let your own moral standards in view of the persons in this case cloud your ability to deliberate. Try to be morally detached from these persons and their lifestyle.?

The Crown?s first witness, Acting Det. Sgt. Jewel Hayward of the Bermuda Police Service?s Forensic Support Unit, said he found knives, bloody clothes, a crack pipe and a condom wrapper when he arrived at the scene.

Det. Sgt. Hayward said he photographed the crime scene ? what he called a ?shed? or ?shack? that had been converted for residential use located towards the back of Mr. Dill?s family home ? around noon on the day of Mr. Dill?s death.

The next day. Det. Sgt. Hayward said he was told to collect a large brown-handled knife from the front steps of a nearby Lusher Hill, Warwick home.

The knife was sent to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police forensic lab in Halifax, Nova Scotia for DNA testing ? along with most of the other evidence Det. Sgt. Hayward said he collected in his murder investigation.

On December 28, he took this knife to the Mid Atlantic Wellness Institute to show Ms Pike, he said.

And on December 29, he went to a Raynor?s Drive, Southampton home and seized a pair of Ruff and Tuff blue jeans hidden behind a headboard and the wall in the bedroom of a lower apartment bedroom.

Det. Sgt. Hayward read a statement by Det. Con. Woods, also of the Forensic Support Unit, that said he took four swab samples from a red motorcycle at Raynor?s Road.

Two more knives ? a flick-knife and machete ? were found at the crime scene, Det. Sgt. Hayward said, along with a white bra, a pair of female underpants and a condom wrapper found on the floor at the foot of the bed.

Bloodstained clothes were also discovered, he said, including a new brown suede men?s jacket, a men?s dark brown suede vest and a white and blue long-sleeve cotton shirt.

Det. Sgt. Hayward also found what he called a ?crack pipe? hidden under other items at the scene.

Blood samples at the scene were examined by an overseas forensic expert, he said.

The Senior Crown Counsel is Paula Tyndale and the defence lawyer is Mark Pettingill.

The case continues before Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves.