SA court hears defence counsel claims that key witness in Nikola Novakovich’s murder trial is the man who killed Karen Williams
THE key witness in the decades-old Karen Williams cold case murder is the real killer and wants to protect himself and earn a $200,000 reward, lawyers claim.
THE key witness in the decades-old Karen Williams cold case murder is the real killer and wants to protect himself and earn a $200,000 reward, lawyers claim.
Counsel for Nikola Novakovich today accused witness Aleksander Radosavljevic of having murdered Miss Williams in 1990 with the aid of his stepfather.
Marie Shaw, QC, for Novakovich, suggested it was Mr Radosavljevic and his stepfather, not her client, who committed an armed robbery that Miss Williams witnessed.
She suggested the duo had killed Miss Williams, and that Mr Radosavljevic had confessed his involvement to his then-partner in a conversation three years later.
“Did you say to her ‘I did something I never want to tell somebody, I did a holdup and murdered someone’?” Ms Shaw asked.
“Did you say ‘we got a tip off this guy was going to have heaps of money but there was no money there ... we bashed the guy and this local Aboriginal girl saw us’?
“Did you say ‘she was half drunk ... she was pretty for an Abo ... she knew us and we made sure she would never tell another living soul’?”
Mr Radosavljevic said those suggestions were incorrect.
“No, not at all, that’s ridiculous ... that never happened,” he said.
“I did not say that, not at all.”
Novakovich, 42, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Miss Williams at Coober Pedy in 1990.
Her disappearance has become one of South Australia’s most infamous cold cases, prompting repeated and intensive searches of mine shafts in and around the town.
Prosecutors have alleged Novakovich killed Miss Williams because she had witnessed him and another man robbing an opal miner just days earlier.
They alleged he either shot, or raped and strangled, Miss Williams based on accounts he subsequently gave to two witnesses — accounts defence counsel insist are inadmissable.
A witness has claimed that when Novakovich raped her, years after Miss Williams’ disappearance, he called her “Karen” and admitted responsibility for her death.
A former Aboriginal health care worker has claimed one of her patients made a deathbed confession that he was the murderer.
Mr Radosavljevic, however, gave evidence he helped Novakovich — the real killer — dump the teenager’s body down a mine shaft after she witnessed them robbing an opal miner.
Today, Ms Shaw suggested her client was not involved in that robbery, but Mr Radosavljevic and his stepfather were.
She said Mr Radosavljevic’s former partner had given a statement to police recounting a 1993 argument in which he confessed to the murder.
“Did you say to her ‘we took her (Miss Williams) to a mine shaft and buried her ... once you close a mine, you can never open it again’?” she asked.
Mr Radosavljevic replied: “No, not at all.”
Ms Shaw said that, in police documents, Mr Radosavljevic said he “had not refused, but had not asked for” the $200,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.
Mr Radosavljevic agreed he had once spoken to a solicitor about claiming the reward, but had subsequently abandoned that claim.
“I’m not doing this for the reward, it’s never been about the money,” he said.
Ms Shaw suggested Mr Radosavljevic and his stepfather had “made themselves scarce” for more than two decades.
“You didn’t want anyone to get a sniff of you, you were trying to stay underground,” she said.
Mr Radosavljevic said that was true, but only because he had been involved in an armed robbery with Novakovich, not because he was responsible for Miss Williams’ murder.
“I didn’t know how to explain what I had done ... I was young, I was stupid back then,” he said.
“I was scared, I didn’t want to explain what I had done all those years ago.”
The court also heard audio recordings, and watched a video recordings, of Mr Radosavljevic’s meeting with Novakovich outside Mount Gambier Hungry Jack’s in June 2013.
They occurred at the behest of SA Police, and were recorded by Mr Radosavljevic for use in the case.
Novakovich told Mr Radosavljevic not to talk to investigating police who had been questioning him and get legal representation.
“As soon as you open your mouth and start something you will have to think of a lie to cover a lie to cover a lie,” Novakovich says in one of the recordings.
He also says “get your solicitor there and he can say no, no, do not answer that question because they have to prove it and they have not proven anything yet.”
In a recorded telephone call several days after the meeting Novakovich tells Mr Radosavljevic: “you are going to bring us all undone because you should not be ringing me. As soon as they find out we are talking we’re fu--ed.”
Ms Shaw said Mr Radosavljevic had told her client “many lies” and asked if he “had to practice”, which he denied.
“So it was quite easy for you to be an effective liar, to have a relationship with him, to tell him lies and be convincing?” she asked.
Mr Radosavljevic agreed it was.
Ms Shaw suggested Mr Radosavljevic had lied to police when they first approached him about the case, and he agreed he had.
He said he had told police he and Novakovich had been stealing a generator, not committing an armed robbery, when Miss Williams saw them.
“I replaced the armed robbery with the generator ... I know now I should have told the truth,” he said.
“But at that point I was not 100 per cent sure if I was going to be arrested.”
Mr Radosavljevic said that, when he signed his police statement, it included a clause that he would not be prosecuted for any crimes he admitted during his interview.
The trial, before Justice Tim Stanley and in the absence of a jury, continues.