Nikola Novakovich, accused of murdering Karen Williams in 1990, returns to Coober Pedy with SA Supreme Court

FIRST PHOTO: The man accused of murdering Karen Williams almost 25 years ago, sparking one of SA’s most infamous cold cases, has returned to the scene of his alleged crime.

THE man accused of murdering Karen Williams almost 25 years ago, sparking one of SA’s most infamous cold cases, has returned to the scene of his alleged crime.

For the first time, The Advertiser can show Nikola Novakovich, who has denied murdering the popular Coober Pedy teenager in 1990 when he was 18 years old.

Novakovich returned to the outback town today as part of a Supreme Court view of locations prosecutors allege are central to the decades-old mystery.

They include the Opal Inn Hotel, a roadhouse and the former site of a restaurant at which Ms Williams and her friends drank and socialised before her disappearance.

Prosecutors, defence counsel and Justice Tim Stanley will also travel to the street at which Novakovich allegedly dropped Miss Williams’ friends before murdering her.

Another key location, according to prosecutors, is an opal mining shaft outside the town where a police informant claims he helped Novakovich dump Miss Williams’ body.

Her body has never been recovered — prosecutors must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, not only that Miss Williams was murdered but that she is actually dead.

Karen Williams, 16, disappeared from Coober Pedy in 1990.

Novakovich, 42, has pleaded not guilty to having murdered Miss Williams on August 4, 1990.

Her disappearance has been one of the state’s most persistent and baffling cold cases, prompting decades of investigation and multiple searches of mine shafts for her remains.

Prosecutors have alleged Novakovich killed Miss Williams because she witnessed he and another man, Aleksander Radosavljevic, robbing an opal miner just days prior.

They have told the court that Mr Radosavljevic will give evidence during the trial about his involvement, and the part he played in an undercover police sting operation.

Mr Radosavljevic recorded discussions he had, with Novakovich, about an incident in their shared past — prosecutors allege it was Miss Williams’ murder.

It is alleged Novakovich urged Mr Radosavljevic to remain silent and not “tell a lie to cover a lie to cover a lie”.

Defence counsel have already flagged a challenge to the admissibility of Mr Radosavljevic’s evidence, saying police had him tell lies in order to entrap Novakovich.

The trial, which Justice Stanley is hearing in the absence of a jury, continues.