Wendie-Sue Dent ‘poisoned Adelaide defacto David Lawrence with lethal cocktail’
An Adelaide man was poisoned with a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs by his defacto — who tried to take his estate while claiming he was “riddled” with disease, a court has heard.
A woman seeking to claim her defacto’s estate poisoned him with a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs, dissolved in an orange liquid, then tried to claim he died because he was “riddled” with asbestosis, cancer and disease, a court has heard.
On Monday, prosecutors told a Supreme Court jury that Wendie-Sue Dent had murdered David Lawrence with tramadol, Valium and the equivalent of 20, 100mg tablets of morphine in the days leading up to his 63rd birthday.
They said she then lied to his family and hers, falsified his will and wrote her name on the back of his prized artwork in order to ensure she was the sole beneficiary of his estate, valued at in excess of $300,000.
However, Dent’s counsel urged jurors to keep an open mind, saying their client had merely tried to help Mr Lawrence ease his ongoing back pain by sharing her prescription painkillers.
His death, they insisted, was not murder but an accidental overdose — while Dent’s subsequent actions were the “irrational” decisions of a woman who lapsed into “a state of denial” as her “life fell apart”.
Dent, 61, of Dapto in NSW, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Lawrence in his Morphett Vale home on or about December 2, 2015.
At the time, he shared the house with Dent, and his body was found in his bed — a glass of orange liquid was on his nightstand.
Opening the trial on Monday, prosecutor Emily Telfer SC said Mr Lawrence was a former Mitsubishi worker, a well-known and skilled handyman and a noted woodwork artist with many close family members and friends.
She said he was in receipt of a pay-out from Mitsubishi as well as a superannuation fund and, “sometime in 2014”, commenced a relationship with Dent.
“How they met is not entirely clear but, very soon after, Dent moved in (and) Mr Lawrence signed a document which provided for the entirety of his superannuation to be paid to her if he passed away,” she said.
“Dent was in receipt of Centrelink benefits, and told various people she was expecting a large payout as a result of a court case relating to an injury to her arm... she presented to people as having a left arm with impaired function.”
Ms Telfer said Mr Lawrence began to draw on his superannuation, spending $85,000 on a motor home which the couple used to travel around Australia.
During one of those trips — on September 25, 2015 — he purportedly wrote a will naming Dent executor and sole beneficiary.
“When (Mr Lawrence’s financial advisor) raised questions about the money being spent, Mr Lawrence and Dent assured him that approximately $200,000 was going to be deposited once Dent got her pay-out,” she said.
In November 2015, Mr Lawrence visited two GPS within a space of days complaining about back pain, for which he was prescribed first anti-inflammatory medication and then Panadene Forte.
Ms Telfer said both doctors noted that, while Mr Lawrence was the patient, Dent “had done all the talking”.
“Mr Lawrence was observed (by friends) to be active, in good health and happy... his family did not make any observations to suggest he was in poor health,” she said.
“In fact, they observed he was a person who was generally active and adverse to taking medication of any kind.”
Ms Telfer said Mr Lawrence was due to see the GP again on December 2, but did not attend the appointment.
She said that, between November 29 and December 2, family and friends repeatedly attempted to contact him for his birthday but received no response — which was uncharacteristic of him.
“Telephone records show the last call made from Mr Lawrence’s phone was 11.11am on November 29, just after his second GP appointment,” she said.
“From November 29 to December 3, the phone was used to access the internet and voice mail.
“On the evening of December 2, between 10.49pm and 11.49pm, Dent’s phone was used to access the internet... just five hours later, at 5.15am on December 3, she called the NAB — where she held a number of bank accounts.
“An hour later, she called Triple 0.”
Ms Telfer said Dent told the operator she had woken up to find Mr Lawrence “dead in bed”, and that he had “clearly” been deceased for some time as he was cold to the touch.
She told paramedics that he “had taken Endone for his back pain” and police that she had given him some of her Valium because “she had been a nurse for many years and knew it was a muscle relaxant”.
Ms Telfer said forensic experts analysed found traces of morphine, tramadol and Valium - all of which were prescribed to Dent, not Mr Lawrence - in the orange liquid on the nightstand.
She said jurors would hear from a toxicologist with regard to both the liquid and Mr Lawrence’s blood composition.
“(The expert) will tell you it would have taken consumption of in excess of 20, 100mg tablets to achieve the level of drug in Mr Lawrence’s body,” she said.
“A single 100mg tablet, in a person who is not tolerant of the drug, is enough to cause death.”
Ms Telfer said Mr Lawrence’s family quickly gathered at the house, only for Dent to present them with typed and hand-written documents she claimed gave her control of his estate.
She said one of Dent’s documents warned that anyone who challenged Mr Lawrence’s alleged will would “get no more than $25”.
“His family started to become suspicious (of the documents because) the names of his sisters were spelled incorrectly,” she said.
“On the back of one of his woodworks was written ‘I sign this piece over to Wendie Dent as she’s the only one who will treasure it... I have a feeling my time is almost up and I would hate the mob to get their greedy hands on it’.”
Ms Telfer said the family and police found other documents which allegedly showed Mr Lawrence was concerned about imminent death, and that a handwriting expert would be called to give evidence on their authenticity.
“Our case is that none of them were written by Mr Lawrence, but by the accused,” she said.
She said Dent returned to Dapto - living in the motor home purchased by Mr Lawrence - and started to proffer “various explanations” for his death, many of which were recorded by police listening and telephone intercept devices.
“Dent told people she had discovered he suffered from asbestosis and that there was a report confirming he was riddled with the disease,” she said.
“She said he had asked her to promise that he would never be placed on life support and that she would be with him when he died, and no one else.
“Dent also said there was no way he would ever take her medication because he knew it was dangerous, and that there was no glass of orange liquid - police were ‘wrong about that’.
“She told police that Mr Lawrence had shared with her that he was terminally ill, with a ‘tumour in his diverticulum’, and would not talk about it except that he did not want to die in hospital and he was not to be resuscitated.”
Ms Telfer said those claims were untrue.
“Mr Lawrence did not have asbestosis, he did not have a tumour, he died from the toxic effects of a cocktail of medications,” she said.
“The prosecution case is that his was no accidental overdose, this was no suicide - this was the deliberate killing of Mr Lawrence because Dent stood to gain financially from his death.”
Stephen Apps, for Dent, told jurors his client had not deliberately ended Mr Lawrence’s life.
“They had been in a close and loving relationship, and came together at a comparatively late stage for both of them... they were planning their future together,” he said.
“It seems that the medication prescribed (by the GPs) was not effective for his back pain and so, in due course, it happened that Mr Lawrence asked Dent for some of the medication she was taking.
“She could see no risk to him at all, she had been taking it herself for a considerable number of years without serious adverse effect.”
He said that medication - not taken “all at once” but “over a matter of days” - “must have caused his death”.
“We will submit that he died of an accidental overdose,” he said.
“After his death, Dent’s life fell apart... she was distraught... she suspected her medication may have caused his death but she could not bring herself to accept that fact.
“Over time, and in the state she was in, she said and wrote many things that were quite irrational... in a state of denial, she was untruthful about some of the events that happened.
“What she said and did was unwise, that’s obvious, but she did not intend to harm her loved one in any way at all - she only wanted him to get better.”
The trial, before Justice Tim Stanley and a 13-person jury, is expected to run for a month.