Walpeup woman Rebecca Payne found guilty of murdering husband with poisoned cookie

A Victorian mum who killed her husband by baking him a poisoned cookie and stuffing his body in a backyard freezer has been found guilty of murder.

Inside the Walpeup kitchen where Rebecca Payne laced the icing of a biscuit with the powdered poison, before handing it to her husband. Picture: Supplied

A Victorian mum who baked her abusive husband a poison-laced cookie before stuffing his lifeless body in a freezer has been found guilty of murder.

Rebecca Payne, 43, was convicted by a Supreme Court jury on Wednesday of murdering Noel Payne, 68, at their home in the tiny town of Walpeup in the state’s northwest in 2020.

She had admitted to killing her husband at the beginning of her three-week trial, which sat in Mildura, and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

But the 12 jurors, after only five hours of deliberations, unanimously agreed she intended to kill him, rejecting her story that she only wanted to send him to sleep.

The jury heard Payne – who had a prescription for temazepam – crushed up more than seven of her sleeping tablets with a mortar and pestle, before lacing the icing of only one biscuit with the powdered poison.

She then handed the biscuit to her unwitting husband – who defence lawyer Richard Edney called a “domestic terrorist” – on the evening of September 1 with a cup of Milo, and waited for him to pass out.

The killer wife then wrapped his body in a blanket and stashed him away in an empty chest freezer they had in their backyard during the dead of night, making sure to tie down the lid with straps.

The body was found at a property on Cregan St three days later after Payne moved the freezer into a neighbour’s backyard, telling them it was “full of rotten meat” and she wanted to keep it away from her dogs.

Payne said she crushed the sleeping tablets in the pantry. Picture: Supplied

Payne last week sat in the witness box and gave evidence in her trial, detailing years of shocking verbal and physical abuse at the hands of the man she had loved.

The court heard the Paynes moved to Walpeup – with a population of 170 – because it was easier for Mr Payne to isolate his wife from her friends and family.

She said her husband of nearly 15 years would exert extreme control over her life, hit her most days of the week and call her degrading names such as “slut” and “dog”.

In one instance, he dragged her out of a car by her hair and kicked her on a gravel driveway.

Payne told the court her partner forced her into getting 18 tattoos of his name all over her body, so no one else could ever “love her”.

She had attempted to leave their marriage on two occasions but when she ran away with their two young sons in 2012, Mr Payne entered into a sexual relationship with another woman, who he moved into the home.

The vulnerable woman with an acquired brain injury, who cannot be named, was also subjected to Mr Payne’s abuse, with neighbours commenting that the women were “prisoners” in their own home.

Payne told the jury she believed the cookie would only put her husband to sleep, claiming she “did not think it was going to kill him”.

“I thought … it would give me a break from the verbal and physical abuse and that he’d sleep all night, go to bed early and wake up the next day and then it would be a different day,” she said.

She then claimed she went into “panic mode” when she came across his unconscious body, which caused her to hide him away.

But Crown Prosecutor David Glynn argued if she had killed him accidentally, she would have done everything in her power to resuscitate him so she did “not end up in the dock of the Supreme Court facing a murder charge”.

He also told the jury there was little reason for her to “need a break” at night-time, putting to the jury Payne planned to get rid of her husband for good.

Payne gave evidence that she did not know how many pills she crushed up that day, but Mr Glynn told the jury she had to be lying to protect her innocence.

“If she’s saying she just wants him to go to sleep, why wouldn’t you count them out?” he said.

“Since she’s using these pills herself, why would she waste them?”

Mr Edney attempted to argue if Payne wanted to kill her husband, she would have used something like rat poison or bleach.

“She acted the way she did … in the world that Noel Payne had created (to try) to have a break, respite, reprieve from his multidimensional family violence,” he said.

But he failed to convince the jury she did not intend to kill her partner.

Payne was remanded in custody and will be sentenced by Justice Rita Incerti at a later date.