Bradley Wayne Trussell stands trial charged with murdering Eden Kennett

Eden Kennett was unconscious and covered in bruises when her alleged killer – boyfriend Bradley Trussell – took her to hospital, a court has heard. WARNING: Graphic detail

Eden Kennett holding her son pictured with her mother Tammy Simpson and grandmother Coral Chaffey before her death in December 2018.

A Mount Gambier man is accused of murdering his partner in an act of domestic violence, a court has heard.

Almost two years after Eden Kennett’s death, Bradley Wayne Trussell is standing trial at the Mount Gambier Supreme Court.

When asked for his plea Trussell, now 29, said “not guilty but guilty for manslaughter”.

Bradley Wayne Trussell is charged with the murder of Mount Gambier woman Eden Kennett.

In his opening address, the prosecutor detailed a volatile on-and-off, two year relationship between the accused and the victim marred by domestic violence.

“This is a tragic case of domestic violence,” the prosecutor said.

“The violence took the life of Ms Kennett at 25.”

Justice Anne Bampton heard Trussell drove the victim to the Mount Gambier Hospital where CCTV footage showed his sister delivering Ms Kennett slumped in a wheelchair on the morning of December 13, 2018.

The victim was admitted unconscious, frothing at the mouth and bruised head-to-toe before she was airlifted to Royal Adelaide Hospital where she was declared brain dead at 8.50am the following morning.

Eden Kennett died in December in 2018. Bradley Wayne Trussell is now standing trial charged with her murder.

The prosecutor argued Trussell assaulted the victim on at least two occasions in the lead up to her death.

He said evidence would prove an earlier attack left the victim bedridden, vomiting and with two black eyes and bruised arms prior to the fatal assault in the late hours of December 12 or early on December 13.

He told the court the fatal injury was a lacerated liver caused by blunt force trauma while she also had head trauma, fractured ribs and more than 40 bruises.

“She was subject to at least two separate beatings by the accused,” the prosecutor said.

A friend of the couple who saw them on two occasions on December 12 gave evidence that Ms Kennett “had a few bruises on her but nothing from stopping her from moving around”.

Bradley Wayne Trussell is charged with the murder of Mount Gambier woman Eden Kennett.

A neighbour told the court she was woken by Trussell yelling at around 5.30 or 6am on December 13 but did not investigate further as she often heard arguments coming from the house.

“I went out there to see where it was coming from,” she said.

“It went on for maybe half an hour. I just stopped hearing it.”

Blood and chunks of hair matching the victim’s DNA and a “long stick or pole” were found at the crime scene after Trussell was arrested in the early afternoon of December 13.

At the time of his arrest and prior to Ms Kennett’s death Trussell denied the assault but later admitted a physical altercation had occurred.

The prosecutor argued the injuries were not the result of self-defence from Trussell or self-hard from Ms Kennett and the combination of methamphetamine, cannabis and prescribed depression and antipsychotic medicine found in his system had not impacted the offending.

Trussell’s defence lawyer told the court Ms Kennett was both perpetrator and victim of violence in the relationship.