Witness claims alleged killer Nikola Novakovich confessed to 1990 Karen Williams murder after being DNA tested in prison

THE man accused of the Karen Williams cold case murder asked a fellow inmate if DNA could be sourced from a body after 20 years and then confessed to the crime, a court has heard.

Nikola Novakovich, who is standing trial for the 1990 cold case murder of Karen Williams, during a view of the alleged crime scene at Coober Pedy. Picture: Greg Higgs.

THE man accused of the Karen Williams cold case murder asked a fellow inmate if DNA could be sourced from a body after 20 years and then confessed to the crime, a court has heard.

After an 11-month adjournment, prompted by legal argument, the trial of Nikola Novakovich resumed in the Supreme Court on Monday.

Prosecutors allege Novakovich, 42, murdered 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.

On Monday, the trial heard evidence from a man, whose identity is suppressed, who once served jail time alongside Novakovich.

He said Novakovich approached him in an agitated state in October 2012.

“He said that he got DNA tested and asked ‘can you get DNA off a body after 20 years?’,” the witness said.

“I said ‘you can get DNA off a dinosaur after 40 million years’, he said ‘ah, they won’t find her anyway’.

“I said ‘find who?’ and he said ‘you know that girl who went missing in Coober Pedy ... I killed her’, I said ‘why?’ and he said ‘because she was going to the police’.

“I asked why was she going to the police and he said ‘because I raped that pr--k teasing b--ch’.”

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

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.

Miss Williams’ body has never been recovered.

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.

Defence counsel, meanwhile, insist the prosecution’s key witness — Novakovich’s former friend, Aleksander Radosavljevic — murdered Miss Williams.

On Monday, Novakovic’s former fellow inmate said he had no knowledge of the case prior to the October 2012 conversation.

“When he said ‘because she was a pr--k teasing b--ch’, he got angry ... he said it with anger, he staunched (sic) up,” he said.

“Later on, I said ‘if you knocked her, did you throw her down a mineshaft?’ ... he thought about it for a second and said ‘I buried her next to the hotel’.

“A fortnight later, he came up to me and said ‘you know how I said I buried her next to the hotel, they’ve since built an outdoor toilet block over her’.”

The trial, before Justice Tim Stanley and in the absence of a jury, is expected to conclude on Friday.

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