Ex-Army captain accused of murdering wife allegedly tried to claim $1m life insurance

These are the four words ex-Army captain accused of murdering his wife at Lake Samsonvale, north of Brisbane, is said to have told a bystander who had asked him about her.

Graeme Davidson has been charged with the murder of his wife Jacqueline Davidson, 54.

An ex-army captain accused of murdering his wife was caught cheating by her a year before her death that was deemed a drowning at a lake north of Brisbane, a bail application has heard.

But lawyers for Graeme Davidson, 55, who moved to Thailand after the death and married a local, said the case against their client was “fundamentally weak” and accused prosecutors of desperate mud slinging to stop him getting bail.

Jacqueline Davidson, 54, drowned at Lake Samsonvale northwest of Brisbane in November 2020 while kayaking with her husband.

Her husband, a former captain in the British Army and most recently a major in the Australian Defence Force was charged with murder, fraud and attempted fraud in May this year.

Police allege he murdered Mrs Davidson and claimed more than $230,000 in the weeks following his wife’s death from a superannuation life insurance payout and then attempted to claim nearly $1 million more from another life insurance policy but this was held up as investigations continued.

Barrister Craig Eberhardt KC told Brisbane’s Supreme Court that Davidson claiming the life insurance was “unremarkable, in fact, it would have been far more suspicious if he didn’t”.

He said there was no evidence Davidson was even aware of the superannuation life insurance policy or that he was a beneficiary until after his wife’s death.

Graeme Davidson, 55, is charged with murder. Picture: Queensland Police Service

Mr Eberhardt said there was also no evidence that the separate life insurance policy they both took out in mid 2020 was his idea pointing out the “handwriting on the application was Jacqueline’s not the defendants”.

When paramedics first arrived on the scene at Lake Samsonvale they found Davidson frantically performing CPR on his wife telling her to “come back to” him.

A “distressed” Davidson told them that she had fallen off her kayak and was underwater for about two minutes, the court heard

When he realised she wasn’t joking around he dived in and took her to shore on a kayak and tried CPR.

Realising he had no phone, which had gone missing at some point, and that no one knew where they were he put her back on the kayak and started pushing it back to a cove while continuing CPR.

Witnesses described Davidson as being reluctant to leave his wife and cleaning up her face after she had died.

“None of that is consistent with just having killed her,” Mr Eberhardt said on Thursday.

The prosecution place “much significance” on Davidson’s comment at the time when asked by a bystander if his wife had any diseases.

“Unless death is contagious,” Davidson is said to have responded.

But Mr Eberhardt said moments later his client said he shouldn’t have said that and pointed out he was highly distressed just having seen his wife of 35 years die.

He said the crown case was fundamentally weak with no witness claiming to have seen Mrs Davidson drowned by her husband who had co-operated with police.

“The opinion of the coroner was that the death was caused by drowning, and there was no evidence of any injury to her skull, her face, her tongue … her throat or the muscles underneath the skin on her throat or her larynx,” Mr Eberhardt said.

“There was no evidence that pointed to the fact that she had been violently assaulted by anyone, and it remains entirely possible that she simply got a fright, overbalanced, fell into the water and drowned.”

He said the couple had invited others to join them that day which was “a remarkable thing to do if you intended to drown her at the scene”.

Mr Eberhardt said the opinion of an expert witness for the Crown who said it would be highly unlikely that Mrs Davidson would suddenly, accidentally fall from her kayak ignored a fainting episode in 2017 where she was taken to hospital for a heart investigation that was inconclusive.

Scenes from Lake Samsonvale north-west of Brisbane where Mrs Davidson died in November 2020.

Mr Eberhardt said a number of possibilities including that she suffered a cardiac arrhythmia and fell into the water couldn’t be discounted.

There was “no dispute” that his client burnt a small amount of documents in his backyard after the death, or finalised the purchase of a new car the week after or that he started dating months afterwards.

The Crown relies on this as “post offence conduct” however Mr Eberhardt said the actions were unremarkable highlighting that the burning of the unknown documents occurred on CCTV with his daughter home and the car purchase had been discussed in the months leading up to his wife’s death.

He said there was no evidence of any domestic violence in the relationship and the marital discord that occurred when Mrs Davidson discovered his client’s infidelity while stationed in Papua New Guinea in 2019 had settled down by the following year.

The Crown opposed bail on several factors including the alleged risk of further offending.

Deputy DPP Caroline Marco said this included violent offending based on an allegation relating to an incident in Thailand in January of this year and an earlier allegation of domestic violence against his wife in 2001 or 2002 in Germany.

Mr Eberhardt said neither allegations had resulted in any charges being laid nor was there any evidence to their truth.

“It shows you just how desperate they are to try and find some mud to fling to try and stop him getting bail,” he said.

“There’s nothing about his history as a mature man of 56 years with no criminal history at all, that would possibly justify a reasonable conclusion that he’s likely to commit further offences.”

Justice Thomas Sullivan adjourned the application to Friday.

Originally published as Ex-Army captain accused of murdering wife allegedly tried to claim $1m life insurance