Jason Thomas King murdered Susan Walker at her Gold Coast home
A Gold Coast tenant who savagely bashed his landlady before strangling her with an extension cord when she wouldn't die has been found guilty of murder.
The family of a woman who opened her house to a man who would go on to “sadistically” kill her have spoken of their love for the petite grandmother and the trauma of her murder. Jason Thomas King murdered Susan Walker at her Gold Coast home where he also lived after she’d asked him to move out over an altercation with another tenant.
King conjured up a story of waking one evening in March 2022 to find an unresponsive Ms Walker who he frantically tried to rouse before raising the alarm.
But with its verdict of guilty on Tuesday following a five day trial in Brisbane’s Supreme Court - where King pleaded not guilty to murder - the jury rejected this tale.
Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelo suggested King had attacked Ms Walker in a fit of rage, stomping and bashing her head against the ground before resorting to an extension cord to finish the job.
“Sue wasn’t changing her mind about you moving out. I suggest you assaulted her and you fought her for almost 10 minutes. She scratched you and that’s how you’ve got the marks on your chest and your back,” Ms Kelso said.
“She wouldn’t die, you got that extension cord and you wrapped it around her neck and then strangled her.”
Sister Rosemary said in a victim impact statement that Ms Walker’s death had left an “indescribable void” with the world robbed of “an extraordinary person and someone who genuinely cared for others”
“I find it impossible to believe that the person who she gave a roof over his head and helped him in so many ways, how he had even thought to take her life away from us in such a horrific and terrifying way,” she said.
The trial heard Ms Walker rented a room to King for just $160 a week giving him free range of the home including the backyard pool.
When he was late with the rent she did not pressure him and helped him source cheap food.
Youngest daughter Jessica said went she went to view her mother at the funeral home she thought there had been a mistake due to the injuries caused by King
““The injuries you inflicted on her were sadistic” she said.
“Your intent was to do more than just harm. It was to take a life in the most painful of ways.”
Daughter Sally said her mother had been robbed of her last decades which she would have made the most of travelling, dancing to rock’n roll as she did every week, and heading to the beach
“Now I believe if you upset a man…then some men believe they have the right to be violent,” she said.
“Upset some men, they might kill you.”
Ms Walker’s son Stephen said his “ happy outgoing four foot nothing mother” was living her best life before King cruelly extinguished it.
“My mum was the happiest most gentle person I’ve ever met,” he said.
“I also worry how alone she must have felt, because my mother was never alone, and until the 20th of March, 2022 she’d never experienced physical violence of any sort.
Brother Simon said King had committed a profound moral crime
“She was kind, generous and compassionate. So much so she offered shelter to someone in need. That act of generosity cost her her life,” he said.
“She never judged others, was a friend and was a steady loving presence in my life and the lives of everyone who knew of her. Her death constantly reminds me how cruel others could be.
“The violence she suffered was not just an attack on her body, it was an attack on her humanity, her dignity, and everything she stood for. She deserved to live out her days in peace, not to be taken from this world in fear and pain.
In sentencing King, Acting Justice Peter Applegarth described Ms Walker as a fine woman and a good soul who was expecting to live a long and happy life.
“This wasn’t a single punch attack, this wasn’t a brief encounter, it was sustained brutality,” he said.
“You intended to kill her and you did that in an extremely violence, callous and cowardly way.
“The disrespectful disgusting way you killed her haunted and continues to haunt her family and no doubt her circle of friends.
“You escalation of violence can only be described as brutal and the strangulation sadistic.”
After killing the 74-year-old King jumped in the pool at the Molendinar property to wash away the blood of his victim.
He then went to a neighbour asking them to call first responders claiming “I didn’t kill her” multiple times.
When police arrived they found him intoxicated, in possession of a bottle of rum claiming he had just arrived home.
Even King conceded this was not true when he took the stand.
Inside the home police discovered a gruesome crime scene.
Ms Walker’s clothes were in “disarray and there was an extension cord lying near her body”. Police noticed bloody footprints, walking away from the body towards a back pool, that were later found to match King’
A pathologist found 54 external injuries on Ms Walker during the autopsy which was exceeded by the number of internal injuries.
“She had a broken hyoid bone, a broken voice box, a number of her ribs had been broken. She suffered a series of blunt force trauma to her body, one in particular, to the back of her head,” Ms Kelso said.
“Injuries to Ms Walker’s neck were consistent with neck compression, strangulation … those fractures were likely caused close to Ms Walker’s death, if they were not, in fact, the final cause of it,” Ms Kelso said.
The court heard that in the days before her death Ms Walker had given King a month to move out because he had allegedly hit one of the other two tenants who lived at the home with a mop bucket.
At the time of Ms Walker’s death he had a balance of $1.06 in his bank account.
King’s DNA was found under Ms Walker’s fingernails and vice versa.
King was sentenced to life imprisonment. With time served he will be eligible for parole in about 17.5 years.
