Just a few hours after allegedly murdering Raymond and James Fleet, Mikaere Huru sent a text message to his girlfriend.

"I'm going to need a bath ready for me baby, I'm going to need you to hold me all night baby."

The trial for Huru and Zen Pulemoana commenced at the High Court in Rotorua on Wednesday, with both accused of the double murder of the uncle and nephew in Mamaku in August last year.

Huru also faces three separate charges connected to the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Both have denied all the charges.

The trial began with Crown prosecutor Duncan McWilliam's opening address, outlining how a plan to 'cook' methamphetamine arranged by Raymond Fleet at a Mamaku address descended into "suspicion, paranoia, threats and ultimately murder".

The catalyst for the killing was the belief Raymond had stolen some of the methamphetamine.

"The suspicion grew over the next few days, as did the anger," McWilliam said.

He said the Crown would call on 36 witnesses and use CCTV, cell phone location data, text messages and statements from the defendants to outline how Huru, Pulemoana and two other men, Martin Hone and Richard Te Kani, who have been convicted for murder and manslaughter respectively in connection with the Fleet case, to prove how Raymond and James were taken to a remote Mamaku location, beaten then murdered.

McWilliam said Raymond was subject to a beating, which included having his head held in a puddle of water, before his head was run over.

He said expert forensic evidence found the cause of death was massive blunt force trauma.

"His skull was effectively shattered like an egg shell," he said.

"Having now killed Raymond Fleet, James became a problem."

He said James Fleet played no part in the methamphetamine manufacture, and was simply "in the wrong place at the wrong time. He has seen too much and was then killed".

The Crown alleged he was killed by a blow to the back of the skull by a spade.

After McWilliam's hour-and-a-half opening address, Huru's lawyer Harry Edward outlined the defence case for his client.

"These killings occurred in a backdrop, a sub culture, of gangs and in gangs there is a hierarchy," he said.

"Mr Huru is at the bottom."

Edward described his client as a 'goofer' who was so down the chain of command he was not even allowed in the premises where the methamphetamine cook took place.

Edward placed full blame for the double murder on the previously convicted Hone, describing him as high, paranoid and unpredictable on the night of the killings.

Pulemoana's lawyer Max Simpkins offered the same explanation.

"He was merely present and things were out of his control. He should be acquitted. . . he was not abetting, not assisting, he was unfortunately there."

Simpkins said Hone alone had a motive to kill over the imagined loss of methamphetamine.

He also challenged the Crown.

"It is for the Crown to prove these charges to the highest standard in the land, beyond a reasonable doubt."

The trial is set to continue on Thursday and is expected to last three weeks.

-Stuff/Benn Bathgate.