Headless torso case: Accused tells why she didn’t go to police
ACCUSED boyfriend killer Lindy Williams asked police while being questioned in relation to her lover’s disappearance if she would be going to jail, a court has heard.
Crime & Justice
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ACCUSED boyfriend killer Lindy Williams asked police while being questioned in relation to her lover’s disappearance if she would be going to jail, a court has heard.
Williams, 60, is on trial in Brisbane Supreme Court for the murder of Coolum Football Club president George Gerbic.
She has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her 66-year-old partner but guilty to disposing of his body, which was found on September 19, 2013.
Gerbic’s headless and limbless torso was found burning on the side of the road near Gympie over five years ago.
It took police over 10 months to identify his remains because they were unable to match his DNA to any on file.
In a recorded interview played to the jury in the second day of Williams’ murder trial, the woman told detectives Mr Gerbic arrived at their Sunshine Coast home angry about tax, his ex-wife and his sexuality.
Williams claimed he attacked her with a steak knife before slipping on her blood and hitting his head on the kitchen bench.
She told police she checked in to a Coolum motel and stayed there for several days before returning to their Tanawha property his decapitated body was laying wrapped in plastic in an ensuite bathroom, the court heard.
During the interview conducted with, prior to being charged, Williams asked Detective Senior Constable Brett Long: “Am I going to go to jail tonight?”
The jury heard Williams detailed to police how she wrapped Mr Gerbic’s body in a tarp and dragged it out to a hire car before dumping it on the side of the road.
She claimed after disposing of the body she stayed at her home for about two weeks.
“I had to go out because it was my son’s birthday and I just had to try and make everything look normal,” she explained in the interview played to the jury.
She told detectives she left Mr Gerbic’s remains burning on the side of the road because she hoped someone would report him missing “pretty quickly”, the court heard.
“You couldn’t bring yourself to go to the police station?” Detective Senior Constable Long said in the recording.
“I just couldn’t understand the pain of jail that night and I thought I needed a soft bed... I just thought they’d see the fire and it would be quickly all over and done with,” Williams said.
Later in the interview she said: “I just realised why you said: ‘Did you leave the motel?’ Because you think I came back and chopped him up.”
The trial continues today and is expected to run for over two weeks.
About 60 witnesses are expected to be called to give evidence.
EARLIER:
ACCUSED killer Lindy Williams didn’t take her boyfriend’s decapitated body to police because she believed they would suspect she had murdered him, a court has heard.
In a recorded interview played to the jury today, Williams told detectives she had left Mr Gerbic on the floor in the kitchen, after hiding out in a bedroom overnight, before going to stay at a hotel at Coolum for three days.
When she returned to the property, Mr Gerbic was no longer on the floor in the kitchen, she claimed.
“When I got home I looked in the garage and saw his car was there and I just walked up to the house pretty slowly just in case,” Williams told Detective Senior Constable Brett Long in an interview played to the court.
“... I walked into his ensuite and there was George. I didn’t know what to do. He was obviously dead. I just didn’t know what to do. I think I sat there for a couple of days and just didn’t do anything.”
The court heard Williams told police the torso was wrapped in plastic and “smelt horrible”.
She said she didn’t take the decapitated body, which she claimed was wearing a black T-shirt, to police because she was worried they would think she had killed Mr Gerbic.
The court has previously heard Williams claimed another man had hacked up the body.
“I picked my phone up and I was going to ring the police and then I thought they’ll think that I did that and that really frightened me because that’s a really horrible thing anyone would do to a human being, whether they’re dead or alive,” Williams said in the interview.
“Then I thought I will have to dispose of him...”
The court heard Mr Gerbic had allegedly been violent toward Williams in the past and a former girlfriend.
Williams told detectives in 2014 she had been slammed against a wall by Mr Gerbic and a former-partner of the 66-year-old allegedly told her: “He (Mr Gerbic) beat me to a pulp.”
During his opening address, crown prosecutor Todd Fuller QC told the court Williams had told a friend she previously made up allegations of abuse relating to another man.
The trial continues today and is expected to run for more than two weeks.
About 60 witnesses are expected to be called to give evidence.
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