Killer Peter Arthur tells court he wants justice for victim Samantha Kelly
A CONFESSED killer who bludgeoned a Bendigo mother of four to death with a hammer says he now wants to tell the truth and get justice for his victim.
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A CONFESSED killer who bludgeoned a mother of four to death with a hammer says he now wants justice for his victim.
“The truth means a lot,” Peter Arthur told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Arthur has been accused of lying about the murder of Samantha Kelly to shift blame from himself and implicate others in her bloody death.
For months after her January 2016 killing, Arthur swore he acted alone.
Then, after pleading guilty to the murder, he implicated his wife, Christine Lyons, and friend, Ronald Lyons, saying the trio had an agreement to kill.
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As a result, police charged Christine Lyons and Ronald Lyons with murder.
They had previously been charged only with being an accessory to murder.
Lawyers for the pair, who have both pleaded not guilty, have dubbed Arthur’s revised version of events “nonsense”, “rubbish” and “cock and bull”.
But he hit back during almost three days on the witness stand, saying he wanted justice for Ms Kelly.
“I’ve got my responsibility and I’ve taken ... why don’t you look at (Christine and Ronald) and ask them to take their responsibility,” he said on Wednesday.
Arthur said he blacked out while attacking Ms Kelly in the bungalow of his Bendigo home.
But he said flashbacks had reminded him about what really happened in the lead-up to her death.
“When you’ve been through what I’ve done then, yes, you have flashbacks and bad nightmares,” he said.
Arthur said he repeatedly lied to police to protect his wife and Ronald, who had three sons.
But he said he decided to change his statements “to get all the truth out”.
He rejected suggestions he was motivated by self-interest.
Arthur repeatedly told police no one else was involved in the killing and begged them to release his wife from custody following her arrest and apologised to Ronald Lyons.
In a letter written from prison Arthur told him: “sorry for what I have done, f---ing up your life like this. I did not mean to”.
After Arthur finished testifying, Justice Stephen Kaye told the jury to take care in accepting his evidence.
“You must give his evidence careful, close and thorough scrutiny,” he said.
“It is by no means uncommon for such witnesses to seek to shift the blame either wholly or partly in order to minimise their own involvement in the events.
“He’s not a person who gave his evidence from a position of detached interest.”