Woodchipper murder case: Trial begins for two accused of killing Bruce Saunders

Two people accused of murdering a man whose body was devoured by a woodchipper near Gympie started planning it six months earlier, a court has heard.

Two people accused of murdering a man whose body was devoured by a woodchipper near Gympie, in what was described as a “love quadrangle’’, allegedly planned several ways of killing him before settling on the method that saw them charged.

Sharon Graham, 61, and her then partner Gregory Lee Roser, 63, have pleaded not guilty to murdering Bruce Saunders at a property at Goomboorian in November 2017.

At the start of their trial on Monday in Brisbane’s Supreme Court, crown prosecutor David Meredith alleged Graham and Roser engaged in a plan to kill Mr Saunders as early as May that year.

Sharon Graham, pictured top left, is accused of killing Bruce Saunders, right, with a court hearing Saunders had changed his life insurance policy before his death.

“That plan, the prosecution says, evolved over time from a plan for Roser to break into Bruce Saunders’ house at Nambour and to kill him … to another plan to lie in wait for him somewhere on his way to work or at his place of work and shoot him, to finally to what the prosecution says actually happened,” Mr Meredith told the court.

“That is the killing and make it look like an accident during tree clearing of a property.”

Mr Meredith said by this stage a third person, Peter Koenig, had been brought into the plan.

“You will hear that he did not join in but (that) he did nothing to stop it. And in fact, he helped hide the fact that it was murder and helped make it look like an accident and then helped spread that false story to everyone including the police,” Mr Meredith told the court.

Mr Meredith said that on the day he died Mr Saunders was helping to clear trees on the property of a recent widow along with Roser and Koenig, who is now a crown witness.

“Koenig will tell you … that Roser used an iron bar to hit Bruce Saunders on the head,” Mr Meredith said.

“He died and that’s hidden by the fact that the body goes into the chipper and whatever happened, it stopped, and all we have are the legs.”

The jury were shown photos of Mr Saunders’ legs protruding from the woodchipper

The scene of the gruesome death in Goomboorian.

Police had initially treated the death as an accident.

The court heard Graham was not at the scene of the alleged murder.

Mr Meredith alleged Graham procured Roser and Koenig to carry out the murder of her former partner.

The court heard that in the months before he died Mr Saunders had taken out a life insurance policy that favoured Graham. They had previously been in a relationship after meeting online and, despite breaking up, they lived together in Nambour.

Mr Meredith said in the weeks before he died Mr Saunders had increased that life insurance policy to $750,000.

“Sharon Graham had a powerful motive for wanting Bruce Saunders dead. He was worth a great deal more to her dead than alive,” Mr Meredith told the court.

“Now this is unusually a love quadrant, not a love triangle, but a love quadrangle because Peter Koenig, Gregory Roser and Bruce Saunders were all in love it seems, at least at some stages, with Sharon Graham,” he said.

“It seems that she may have had intimate relations with all three.”

Sharon Graham.

Bruce Saunders.

Roser’s barrister Lars Falcongreen said his client did not dispute that Mr Saunders was allegedly murdered but that Roser was not responsible.

“There were three men woodchipping. One of them was murdered but Mr Roser did not do it and did not help,” he said.

“In the simplest of terms, the pivotal question on our case will be whether Mr Koenig was responsible for the murder or whether Mr Roser was.”

Mr Falcongreen said it would not be disputed that Roser “shamefully assisted in the disposing of the already dead body of Mr Bruce Saunders through the woodchipper”.

“He lied about it being an industrial accident just like Peter Koenig lied about that,” he said.

Mr Falcongreen said his client alleged Graham did counsel or procure the murder of Mr Saunders but disputed he was the one who was procured or counselled for the killing.

“Ms Graham may have made attempts to procure Mr Roser but in the end it was Peter Koenig who was procured,” he said.

Justice Martin Burns emphasised to the jury that nothing Roser said about what happened could be admissible against Graham.

Graham’s barrister Peter Richards said his client never asked Roser or Koenig to kill Mr Saunders.

“So far as she understood it Mr Saunders died as a result of an accident .... that is what she was told and believed because she was not there.”

The trial continues tomorrow.