Borce Ristevski went to garage for smoke, daughter Sarah’s statement to police reveals
SARAH Ristevski told police her father, Borce, went into the garage to smoke after telling her that her mother, Karen, had disappeared, because “he doesn’t like to see me cry”, her statement released in court reveals.
Law & Order
Don't miss out on the headlines from Law & Order. Followed categories will be added to My News.
SARAH Ristevski told police her father, Borce, went into the garage to smoke after telling her that her mother, Karen, had disappeared, because “he doesn’t like to see me cry”.
Ms Ristevski’s statement to police was released on Wednesday during a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to send Mr Ristevski for trial for his wife’s murder.
Ms Ristevski, 23, told police her father had been watching TV when she arrived at their Avondale Heights home about 6.30pm on June 29, 2016.
RISTEVSKI CASE A SINISTER TALE IN SUBURBIA
“I asked Dad where Mum was. Dad looked at me and just put his hand up as if to say he didn’t know,” she said.
“I asked my dad: ‘What happened?’,” she said.
“Dad said: ‘You know what she gets like when she gets on to one thing and then on to another and continues it’.”
She said her dad then said her mother had left the house without her car that morning, to “clear her head”.
“Mum used to always say that. I started crying and told Dad that she always does this and doesn’t think about other people,” Ms Ristevski said.
They kept to plans to visit her grandparents for dinner, but her mother wasn’t at home on their return.
“Dad could see that I was getting distressed which was making him get more anxious because he doesn’t like to see me cry. Dad told me he was going to go and smoke some shisha in the garage,” she said.
“Dad went into the garage for a while. I was crying.”
She said he later came and hugged her and told her “it was going to be OK”.
She then tried calling her mother “constantly”, but the phone was switched off.
Next day, after fruitlessly searching the house to see if her mother had left any notes, or had taken her passport, she and her father went to the police station to make a missing person’s report.
Mr Ristevski, 54, has consistently told police that his wife walked out of their home to clear her head after they had fought over finances.
But police allege he killed her in the home, put her body in the back of her black Mercedes Benz roadster, and dumped her in a shallow grave at Mt Macedon, where she wasn’t found until eight months later.
Glenn Dower, a police forensic officer who examined Mrs Ristevski’s car, told the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court that “large clumps of mud” had been found under the wheel arches, consistent with the car having been driven for a short time on a wet, unsealed road. Testing also revealed the fuel gauge was faulty, he said.
Prosecutor Matt Fisher has said Mr Ristevski told investigators he took his wife’s car for a drive on the day she disappeared to refuel it, as the gauge had broken, but it corrected itself when he went over a bump and so he went home.
Mt Macedon local Rosemary Davies told the court she saw a “sporty” black Mercedes in the area on June 29. She thought it “out of place”, saying: “I just thought it was a tourist on the wrong road. I thought this was someone who didn’t know where they are or what they were doing.”
Motorist Glen Golfis gave evidence that he saw a black Mercedes parked the wrong way on the roadside, a four-wheel-drive behind it, around midday on the same day.
The committal hearing, before magistrate Sue Cameron, continues on Thursday.