‘We’ll both be f***ed’: Accused killer Emil Petrov warned witness not to reveal gun, court hears

A star witness in the Cindy Crossthwaite murder trial has told a court Emil Petrov warned him not to tell police he had sourced a gun allegedly used to shoot his estranged wife in the head.

Emil Petrov is accused of killing his estranged wife Cindy Crosswaite in 2007. Picture: Nadir Kinani

Accused wife killer Emil Petrov told his mate, who sourced the gun allegedly used to shoot Cindy Crossthwaite dead, that he better not tell police “or we’ll both be f---ed”, a jury has heard.

Star witness Brian O’Shea took the stand in Emil “Bill” Petrov’s murder trial on Thursday, where he admitted to getting a firearm that may have been used to shoot the mother of three in the head at her Melton South home in 2007.

The crucial witness — once himself charged with Cindy’s murder over the gun — told the Supreme Court he had previously denied ever sourcing the weapon until the charge against him was dropped in a deal with prosecutors that led him to testify against his old workmate.

The court heard that a decade after Cindy’s lifeless body was found when she failed to pick up her kids from primary school, police arrested Mr O’Shea in November 2017.

Just after he’d spent the day being interviewed by police, Mr O’Shea told the jury he went to Chinatown for dinner with the accused killer.

“Bill said, ‘How’d you go in your interview’,” Mr O’Shea told the court.

“I said, ‘I just lied, I didn’t tell them about the gun’ ... He said, ‘You better not or we’ll both be f---ed’.”

Emil Petrov is accused of killing his estranged wife Cindy Crosswaite in 2007. Picture: Ian Currie

But in the witness box on Thursday, the 54-year-old said he sourced a gun for $3k in 2006 after Mr Petrov said he needed a weapon because his parents’ home had been broken into.

Soon after, Mr O’Shea said he took an envelope from his mate, stuffed with $50 notes, to a man who pulled up in the car park of Footscray’s Powell Hotel and handed him a black shoebox with a handgun inside.

“Aye, put your hand out,” he said the man told him after giving him the shoebox through his car window.

“He grabbed five or six bullets and he stuck them in my hand from the console ... I stuck it straight in the shoebox.”

Quizzed by Mr Petrov’s defence barrister Ashley Halphen, Mr O’Shea said he’d always denied ever getting Mr Petrov a gun, even as he himself faced trial for murder in a case that was aborted.

Cindy Crossthwaite was found shot dead in the doorway of her Melton South home.

That was, until he flipped and became a witness against Mr Petrov in April this year.

Mr O’Shea also agreed that until the deal was made, he’d never before told police what he claimed to have seen in Mr Petrov’s boot six to eight weeks before Cindy was murdered.

As his mate went to his car for a slab of scotch cans, Mr O’Shea said he “could see a beanie in the boot, dark blue jacket, ... a wig was the first thing I seen, dark curly wig ... black gloves and he had two white bags ... empty white rubbish bags in the boot, nothing in them.”

“He seen me look at ‘em ... he put on the wig and put on the black gloves and said, ‘What do I look like?’”

Mr O’Shea said he told him he looked “like a curly wog” and asked Mr Petrov what he was going to do with that stuff.

“I’m gonna go kill Cindy, will you help me? ... I’m going to kill that f---ing c---,” he said his mate replied.

“He tell me he was going to put white bags on his shoes so they don’t know the size of his shoes.”

Star witness Brian O’Shea admitted to getting a firearm that may have been used to shoot Cindy Crossthwaite. Picture: David Crosling

Mr O’Shea said he told his friend “you’re off your f---ing head” and Mr Petrov “grabbed me, sort of punched me, ‘Oh, I’m only mucking around, I’d never do that to the mother of the kids’.”

Witnesses later told police they’d seen a man in a jacket and beanie near Cindy’s home around the time she was killed.

Months after Cindy’s death, Mr O’Shea said, “I asked him about the gun”.

“I asked him where the stuff, the gloves and beanie and jacket, so forth ... Bill said his dad and himself wanted to get rid of it.

“They drove up near Geelong, near Lara and Little River, and they dug a hole and put everything beside the freeway.”

He said “everything” went in the hole, including the gun he’d given to his mate in the Powell Hotel car park.

Mr Petrov has pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife amid a dispute over properties during their separation.

The trial, before Justice Christopher Beale, continues.