Convicted killer Scott Alan Murdoch blames shower fall for guilty plea
Scott Alan Murdoch, the man convicted of a vicious hammer attack on a grandmother, has attempted to change his guilty plea after claiming a fall in the “very slippery” prison shower before entering his plea left him confused.
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A convicted killer has tried to change his guilty plea on a vicious hammer attack on a grandmother, saying he was confused after he slipped in the prison shower and hit his head.
Scott Alan Murdoch, 42, gave evidence in the Supreme Court to say hours before he pleaded guilty to killing Kylie Blackwood and intentionally causing serious injury to Ilona Prohaska in two separate attacks in their homes three months apart, he had the bathroom accident.
“The floors there are very slippery,” Murdoch told the court.
Standing in the witness box wearing black and orange Nike sneakers, with grey tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, Murdoch did not know how long he had “knocked myself out” for.
But he knew it had to of been for some time because the TV was on and the Channel 7 morning program Sunrise had not started as he stepped out of the shower, but it was on when he regained consciousness.
Murdoch said he did not want to change his plea for killing Mrs Blackwood in her Pakenham home in what was suspected to be a burglary gone wrong in August 2013.
Instead he claims he had nothing to do with the attack on Ms Prohaska, a 79-year-old grandmother who miraculously survived having her throat slit in a terrifying attack in her Endeavour Hills home May 2013.
The Herald Sun is only able to publish details about his brazen bid after Justice Lex Lasry today dismissed his application.
But on the morning of August 8, when he attended court and entered his guilty pleas to both crimes, he said he felt pressured by his lawyers to take a prosecution deal, in which an attempted murder charge relating to Ms Prohaska would be dropped to intentionally cause serious injury.
“I was told I had two minutes to make the decision,” Murdoch said, adding that “you break” under pressure.
“When you have someone say to you if you don’t plead to this you’ll never see the light of day. How do you try to respond to things like that?”
Murdoch’s barrister Stewart Bayles, in an affidavit to the court, said Murdoch “did appear stressed”, but when asked about the plea deal, his client told him: “Alright, make the offer.”
“My head is all over the place, but yeah, make the offer,” Mr Bayles claims Murdoch told him.
Moments later he entered the courtroom, stood in the dock, and entered guilty pleas to both charges.
When Justice Lasry questioned him why he didn’t just refuse his lawyer’s request, Murdoch said: “I’m sorry. I wish I had done it that way.”
“But all you had to say was ‘no, I’m not doing it’,” Justice Lasry pressed.
“I just felt that overwhelmed. My emotions were going through the roof,” Murdoch said.
When prosecutor Nick Papas QC asked Murdoch in the hearing on December 10 if he was playing games, Murdoch said: “No”.
“We suggest you pleaded guilty because you did do it,” Mr Papas said.
Murdoch replied: “I always said right from the start I was not pleading on the Prohaska matter.”
Asked by the prosecution if he murdered Mrs Blackwood, Murdoch chillingly, without pausing, said: “Yes, I did.”
But when asked if he committed the offences against Mrs Prohaska, he said: “No, I didn’t.”
Murdoch said he told his lawyers that he always intended to plead guilty to murdering Mrs Blackwood, but “I had no intention” on doing the same in Ms Prohaska’s case.
Murdoch said as he stepped out of the shower and was putting his shoes on, he slipped and hit his forehead on the sink, knocking him unconscious at the Melbourne Assessment Prison.
When he came to, he said he felt “groggy”.
Murdoch agreed with the prosecutor that he saw a nurse at 7.15am and was deemed medically fit to attend court.
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But on arrival at the Supreme Court he said he started vomiting in the cells.
Justice Lasry refused his change of plea application saying he did not accept that Murdoch’s lawyers put pressure on him.
He said the prosecution case in Ms Prohaska’s matter was “strong” and included DNA evidence.
Murdoch will now return before Justice Jane Dixon, who heard his initial guilty pleas, for a pre-sentence hearing at a later date.
Justice Dixon will then sentence him on both crimes after that.