Samah Baker love triangle: alleged killer James Hachem loses bail bid
The man accused of killing missing Sydney woman Samah Baker has lost a bid for bail. Police allege James Hachem became enraged with jealousy when she started dating another man.
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The man accused of killing missing Sydney woman Samah Baker amid a love triangle has lost a bid for bail.
Hurstville Grove man James Hachem has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 30-year-old last year, before allegedly driving her body to a McDonald’s drive-thru and leaving it in the car at a shopping centre for hours.
On Wednesday the 34-year-old was denied $2.7 million bail in the Supreme Court, which heard Hachem allegedly exacted revenge when his on and off again girlfriend started dating another man.
Hachem admits he was the last person to see his “friends with benefits” alive, and he is captured on security footage with Ms Baker at the Vibe Hotel in North Sydney in the hours before she disappeared in January 2019.
The pair had known each other for 15 years, and Ms Baker had become heavily dependent on Hachem financially, the Crown alleges.
When he found out Ms Baker had a new flame called Danny Saka, Hachem sent her text messages showing his “displeasure”, the court heard.
Justice Geoffrey Bellew said the circumstantial Crown case “is not demonstrably weak”, but because Ms Baker’s remains have still not been found there will be a fundamental issue at trial over whether she is in fact dead.
Defence barrister Daniel McMahon argued there is no body, no crime scene and no evidence of a struggle, while a depressed Ms Baker had threatened to kill herself in the past.
The TAFE NSW worker was dropped to her Parramatta unit by a friend in the early hours of January 4, 2019, where Hachem allegedly tried to lure her outside by concocting a story that his parents had been involved in a car accident.
Crown prosecutor Fiona Gray said blood spots with Ms Baker’s DNA profile were found on a seat liner from Hachem’s car that had been cut out and hidden in his wardrobe at the family home, alongside a cut out piece of carpet from the boot.
Hachem’s phone was traced to Ms Baker’s unit that morning before he allegedly headed to North Parramatta McDonalds drive-thru at 5.15am.
The Crown alleges Hachem then drove to Hurstville Westfield and left Ms Baker’s body in the car park for five and a half hours while he went for a job interview.
Ms Gray said that day Hachem bought sheets, towels, gloves, garbage bags and cleaning items before driving from Sydney to Canberra and isolated bushland nearby.
Over the next nine days Hachem allegedly drove south twice more while buying four litres of vinegar and a “digging tool.”
Police searched scrubland near Goulburn and South Nowra but there was no breakthrough, and Mr McMahon said there’s no proof Hachem travelled to a rural area to dump Ms Baker’s body.
Mr McMahon said in a previous relationship Ms Baker had threatened to throw herself in front of a train.
“We know, and there is cogent evidence of, a history of mental illness, of depression, of self harm,” he said.
The barrister said prosecution fears that if released on bail, Hachem may return to Ms Baker’s burial site to destroy evidence or masquerade as her on social media to distract police was “beyond speculative.”
But the Crown alleges in the days after Ms Baker’s disappearance, Hachem reactivated a previously dormant Facebook account she’d used 10 years prior to make it look like she was still alive, and then deactivated it after he was interviewed by police.
Hachem also allegedly asked his friend Joshua Gynther to tell interviewing officers: “I was from a Christian background and it was a friends with benefits situation with Samah.”
Hachem, who has no criminal history, was charged with Ms Baker’s murder in March 2019 and he may remain in custody for up to two-and-a-half years before facing trial, the court heard.
