Tia Landers murder: Killer’s dumping ground revealed

KILLER John Edward Harris returned to a forest to bury mother-of-four Tia Landers more than 15 years after dumping his flatmate’s body there after shooting the man in the head.

Murder scene where body of Tia Landers was found off Roys Road,Beerwah. Pic Glenn Barnes

• TIA LANDERS: She fought for her life
• MURDER TRIAL: ‘We chopped her up with a machete’

KILLER John Edward Harris returned to Beerburrum State Forest to bury mother-of-four Tia Landers more than 15 years after dumping his flatmate’s body there after shooting the man in the head.

Harris’ use of the forest, 70km north of Brisbane, as his dumping ground can now be revealed after he and de facto partner Linda Appleton last week pleaded guilty to Ms Landers’ murder, stopping their trial mid-way.

They had previously admitted to interfering with her corpse and depriving the liberty of her two friends, Jake McKenzie and Ryan Morgan.

The jury wasn’t told of the previous murder trial Harris faced in the Supreme Court in Brisbane in 1999 where he was accused of deliberately shooting his flatmate in the head the previous year.

Harris, who was on parole at the time, bundled Christopher Jason Hay’s body into the boot of a car and drove to Beerburrum State Forest where he dumped him.

While Harris admitted to shooting his flatmate, he claimed it was not intentional, which the jury ultimately agreed with and acquitted him of murder.

He had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

In refusing Harris leave to appeal his 10 year sentence, the Court of Appeal noted he had picked up a loaded gun and jabbed it towards Hay, while ignoring a third man’s pleas to “put the safety catch [back] on”.

Facebook image of Tia Landers.

But he was drawn back to the same state forest 16 years later when he and Appleton dumped Ms Landers’ body, wrapped in a blanket, in a shallow grave in June 2014.

When police unearthed her corpse the next month, she had more than 30 wounds and her throat was wrapped in tape.

A chewed piece of gum with Harris’ DNA was discovered nearby, their trial heard.

Ms Landers had met her demise at the couple’s Brighton home, where, over hours, she was choked, attacked with a machete, bashed, and shot twice in the head, before a plastic bag was placed over her head to end her dying groans.

Mr McKenzie recalled Ms Landers had been stomped on so many times she had no teeth left.

Her skull, he said, had swollen to twice its size and she was unable to stand following a particular vicious bashing after she made a desperate bid to escape.

It was Harris who pulled the trigger as Ms Landers begged “no”. Appleton had wielded the machete and put the bag over her head.

Ms Landers’ two friends were then ordered to help clean up the blood and carry her body to the boot of the station wagon.

Mr McKenzie said, with Harris behind the wheel, and Appleton seated in the passenger seat, the two men were dropped-off at their homes before the couple drove on to the forest.

The trial heard Appleton later confessed what had happened to an undercover cop placed in her cell following her arrest.

“She told the officer, “we carved her up, we chopped her up, we chopped her up with a machete”...and [later] gestured two bullet wounds to the head,” Crown prosecutor Philip McCarthy said.

In the days leading up Ms Landers’ death, Appleton was angry her jewellery had been stolen while behind bars -- and believed Ms Landers was responsible, the trial heard.

Mr McCarthy said Harris, too, told another prisoner how he’d had an affair with Ms Landers while Appleton was in prison, and that it had been “his decision” to kill her.

They are set to be sentenced today.