Geoffrey Adams trial begins with jury hearing he killed wife Colleen Adams and buried her in backyard of Maitland home in 1973
The trial of Geoffrey Adams, who allegedly murdered his wife Colleen in 1973 in Maitland and claimed she walked out on her family, has opened with a jury hearing Adams confessed to killing her – but denied intending to.
Police & Courts
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A husband left his wife laying on the kitchen floor after striking her with a metal pole and buried her in the backyard the next day, a jury has been told.
Geoffrey Adams, 71, is accused of murdering his wife Colleen Adams at the pair’s family home in Maitland on November 1973.
Adams has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting he hit his wife over the head with a 30cm metal pole twice, but has denied intending to kill her.
Mrs Adams was initially treated as a missing persons case before being declared a major crime six years later.
Opening the trial on Monday prosecutor Jim Pearce QC said Adams “peddled a false story” in the days after allegedly murdering his wife.
“After killing his wife the accused set about concealing his crime, within a few hours he had dug a shallow grave in the backyard of the matrimonial home where he buried Mrs Adam’s body,” Mr Pearce said.
“He then set about laying a false trail, designed to conceal his crime.
“He promulgated a story which had its epicentre the narrative that one morning Mr Adams got up, packed her bags and walked out of the marriage.”
Adams initially told police that he had woken on the morning of November 22, 1973, to find his wife packed and ready to leave the house and her two young children behind.
Mr Pearce said Adams had maintained that she had said “goodbye you little bastards” to her two daughters, then aged three and 18 months old, and that she claimed to be “bloody glad to be leaving”.
Mr Pearce said that evidence to be presented to the jury would show that Mrs Adams was a “doting mother”.
According to Adams, Mr Pearce said, his wife had then left in a white Ford Falcon and was not seen or heard from again.
The prosecution case, the jury heard, was that Adams had returned home on the evening of November 21, 1973, after drinking at the Buffalo Lodge on the Yorke Peninsula.
“An argument developed which culminated in the accused striking and killing Mrs Adams,” Mr Pearce said.
He said that the following day Adams took the two children to his parents’ house on the outskirts of Maitland.
In 1999 police used ground penetrating radar to isolate a spot in the backyard.
However, when it was dug up, police found nothing.
The jury heard that Adams had borrowed $2000 to lay a large cement slab in the backyard of the property in 1976.
Mr Pearce said that in September 2018 police and media scrutiny were focused on Adams after the file on Mrs Adams’ case was reopened.
After days of interviews with police and media crews camped outside his door in Wallaroo, Adams eventually called Major Crime detectives and said he “wanted to set the record straight”.
Mr Pearce said Adams told police “I just struck her a bit too hard and that was it”.
The jury heard Adams told detectives Mrs Adams had been “constantly having a go” at him.
Adams led police to where the body was buried in the backyard, the same spot as had been excavated in 1999, but deeper than had been searched, the court heard.
Bill Boucaut, for Adams, said that large parts of the prosecution case was admitted, but that the issue of whether his client intended to kill his wife was the crucial question.
“Don’t get the impression that just because someone tells lies, possibly despicable lies, that it means that he is guilty of the crime that he is charged,” he said.
“The real question is: did he have murderous intent?”
The case continues.