Ex-Serco guard Matt Vanko guilty of murder

A FORMER SERCO guard has been found guilty of murder in the Darwin Supreme Court.

Murder weapon

A FORMER SERCO guard has been found guilty of murder in the Darwin Supreme Court.

Murder weapon

37-year-old former Serco immigration detention centre employee Matej Vanko, known as Matt, took his supervisor hostage and executed her brother and his dogs told "a pack of lies" about a fabricated alibi, the Darwin Supreme Court heard during the trial.

Vanko pleaded not guilty to depriving Noelene Stevens of her liberty, and to murdering her brother Donald on April 23, 2012.

Today he was found guilty on all charges.

Matt Vanko

The court heard Vanko held her captive for several hours that evening, handcuffed and tied up with strips of teatowel and a mobile phone charger cord while, unbeknownst to her, her brother lay dead in another room, stabbed in the back of his head.

Vanko felt his work ambitions were being thwarted by Ms Stevens, crown prosecutor David Morters told the jury in his closing submissions on Monday.

"What the accused told you is a pack of lies," he said.

Towards the end of the trial it was announced that Vanko had a never-before-mentioned alibi for the day of the murder.

He said he was with a friend called Bridget Tomlins in Palmerston for nine hours that day but did not have her number in his phone and had never called her, phone records showed.

Despite saying he had visited her at home on four occasions, he could not recognise her house in photos, did not remember where he parked, whether they sat in the lounge or the bedroom or whether other people were in the house.

He said she had a newborn baby when in fact her daughter was two.

"He can provide you with only the vaguest details about where he met Bridget Tomlins on 24 April, 2012, even though it's got to be the most important day of his life," Mr Morters said.

He told the court that Vanko had befriended Ms Tomlin's brother Jack in prison and that the two men used her to fabricate an alibi before the trial began.

Telephone conversations played to the court between Jack Tomlins and his girlfriend showed how he tried to get his sister to visit Vanko in prison in September before his trial was due to start.

Police searching the rural propertyMatt Vanko

Vanko had previously admitted to casing the house the Stevens siblings lived in together, by having a friend drive to the property the month before the attack, while he hid in the backseat.

His DNA was found on the teatowel used to bind Ms Stevens as well as on the curtains in her bedroom.

Matt Vanko

But he said he had visited Don Stevens, whom he had met through work, and wiped his hands on a teatowel and had been in the bedroom because Don had given him a tour of the house.

"It's so contrived it demonstrates the desperation of the accused to provide you with a false story to explain the overwhelming evidence (against him)," Mr Morters said.

Vanko will be sentenced at a later date.