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A still from John Chardon’s police interview
A still from John Chardon’s police interview

Novy Chardon trial police tapes revealed

CONVICTED wife killer John Chardon told police Novy Chardon told their daughter she was “frightened” the day she disappeared.

The businessman’s interview with police, which was recorded two weeks after his 34-year-old wife went missing on February 25, 2013, can today be published by The Courier-Mail.

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It comes as the 72-year-old Gold Coast lubricant tycoon was today sentenced to 15 years behind bars after being found guilty of Novy’s killing by a Brisbane Supreme Court jury earlier this week.

Found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on Monday, he will not be eligible for parole until 2032, but will be subject to Queensland’s “no body, no parole” laws and dangerous prisoner legislation.

For the first time, it can be revealed exactly what Chardon told officers on February 6, 2013, when he claimed his wife Novy “went away”.

“She just looked at me, she turned around and looked at me and said, and I can’t remember exactly whether she said: ‘I gotta go away’, or ‘I’m going away’, right, because Novy could speak good English, but she’s got no bloody comprehension.”

He said his daughter told him Novy was strange the night she went missing.

“... she wiped her hands... she said she was... very quiet, she was mumbling to herself, she was nervous and... she was frightened of something,” Chardon said his young daughter told him.

The day after Novy disappeared, Chardon says to officers he woke and went to Novy’s bedroom.

“... I turn around, I notice the bloody makeup wasn’t there. So, I run out and had a look and the car was gone, the I noticed things like a laptop and her, um, um, iPad and, and, and one little suitcase she had, and other stuff was gone,” he says in the interview.

He later tells Senior Constable Troy Neumann and Sergeant Peter Stock he tried to phone Novy after she disappeared.

Revealed: Chardon police interviews

“We didn’t realise she was missing,” Chardon claims to police.

“We actually tried to phone her during the day and the phone went straight to message bank. That means her phone was turned off.”

The now 72-year-old later explained again: “We tried to ring her phone for about, a couple of days. Even the kids rang and left messages”.

Chardon also attempts to explains why he cleaned the carpet in Novy’s bedroom the day after she went missing and why he didn’t report her missing before he left.

Detectives hear Chardon say in the recording, Novy’s friend Debbie told the businessman before he went to Indonesia days after his wife went missing that she would report her missing.

“Debbie rang... she said she can’t get a hold (of Novy), and I said: ‘I don’t know where she is, mate’,” Chardon said in the interview.

“Then Debbie rang the next morning, she’s going off and off and off.

“And I said: ‘Look I don’t know, mate’ And even Chanel told them that ‘look daddy’s, we’re going to do it, right, it’s none of your business’, that’s what she told (her).

“It’s, you know... it’s our family and we’re gonna, Daddy’s gonna do, we’re going to do it right?

“Next thing I know, Angela had rung me and said: ‘Oh the police have come to see me, asking about Novy’. And that’s all I know, about... a bloody thing.”

Chardon the says: “I don’t know where she is”.

“I don’t know what’s happened to her. All I know is I didn’t do anything to her.”

He claims during the interview Novy “flipped out” and was acting “strange” the night she disappeared.

A still from John Chardon’s police interview
A still from John Chardon’s police interview

During the almost two-hour-long interview, Chardon claims he suffers from “temporary amnesia” because his brain is “too active” and sometimes “shuts down”.

But he later says: “I got a fairly good, I just have an extremely good memory. Like, when I was tested earlier, I was just about 75 per cent photographic.”

During the wide-ranging questioning, where Chardon struggles to stay on point, the man regularly disparages his wife saying she “goes off about every little thing”.

“... with Novy, you can’t sorta, you (have to) be very careful what you say to her because she goes right off, she can go right off,” Chardon tells detectives.

He later said of his wife of 12 years: “No one takes too much notice when she talks.”

When asked what Novy was wearing the night she disappeared, Chardon tells police, “I think she had shorts on.

“Because the thing with Novy in shorts, she always looked bloody terrible. I’m serious, that’s what I always said to her: ‘Dont’ wear shorts, it makes you look like a bloody hooker’,” Chardon explains, recounting the last time he saw his wife and mother of their two children, who had been missing for two weeks at this stage.

“Yeah, well she, she, the thing is, she always used to wear these bloody really tight shorts, like you see the bloody hookers on American TV wearing them, right?

“And... that’s why I noticed it because she always looked bloody terrible, ’cause her legs were always too big at the top, right, and I always said to her: ‘I wish you wouldn’t wear those, ’cause you always look like a hooker’

“She didn’t like me saying that, but I, you know, I always speak my mind, so.

“But that’s how I know she was wearing the shorts...”

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Original URL: https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/behindthescenes/novy-chardon-trial-police-tapes-revealed/news-story/2f2747e5cc79469e028a9292ce1c888b