Trial begins for man accused of murdering Queensland grandmother Liselotte Watson
LISELOTTE Watson was brutally and callously murdered by a man once entrusted to mow her lawns and do her grocery shopping, Queensland’s Supreme Court has heard.
IT’S A small southeast Queensland island that serves as home for just a few thousand people.
But Macleay Island is also the place where Liselotte Watson was brutally and callously murdered by a man once entrusted to mow her lawns and do her grocery shopping.
That’s the allegation levelled against Steven Mark John Fennell, 56, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 85-year-old in November 2012.
On the first day of his Supreme Court trial, a jury heard how the junk mail deliverer befriended the “fiercely independent” grandmother and was authorised to make withdrawals from her bank account.
Fennell took a total of $24,000 from her account in five withdrawals — the last taking place just 10 days before her death — over a period of about three months leading up to her violent passing, crown prosecutor Glen Cash said.
The court heard the widow’s body was found on her bedroom floor with blood dried in her hair and splattered across the room.
Mr Cash said forensic evidence would suggest she had been struck in the back of the head four to six times with a heavy object consistent with a hammer.
Police officer David McDougall, who was stationed on the island at the time, described finding her lifeless body when he and Fennell went over to check on her.
“I said ‘Steve are you OK? You’re not going to chuck a wobbly on me?’,” he told the court.
To this, he said Fennell replied: “No Dave, I’m fine. This is dreadful”.
Mr Cash noted there was no DNA, fingerprints or blood at the scene directly linking Fennell to Mrs Watson’s death.
But he said the prosecution case relied on circumstantial evidence incriminating the accused, who likely killed the elderly woman to cover up financial misdeeds and was spotted regularly gambling at the local TAB.
The trial continues before Justice Martin Daubney.