Pilot charged with murdering wife told triple-0 operator he thought she was okay
A pilot charged with murdering his wife told a triple-0 operator he thought she was OK after a purported lawnmower accident, as court documents reveal crime scene photos and her final message to one of her children.
QLD News
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A man charged with murdering his wife told a triple-0 operator he thought she was OK after a purported lawnmower accident but he needed an ambulance ASAP.
Robert John Crawford, 47, is accused of strangling his wife Frances Crawford, a mother of three, in a murderous rage at their Upper Lockyer property near Toowoomba before she had a chance to leave him.
She was found next to a ride-on lawnmower at the bottom of a retaining wall, which Crawford claimed had rolled on her.
The triple-0 transcript from the incident last July has been obtained by The Courier-Mail through court record requests.
The documents also reveal Ms Crawford’s final text messages, crime scene photos and a prosecution expert’s recreation of Crawford’s account of what happened.
According to the police court brief, Crawford called triple-0 at 3.47am on July 30 requesting an ambulance to his home address. The call taker asked what had happened.
“I don’t know. I just found her. She’s off the … like the mower’s rolled, I … I dunno … what she’s doing,” Crawford responded.
The call taker asked if the mower had rolled on to Ms Crawford.
“Yeah … yeah … I’m just, I’m trying to, I had to pull it off and like … I think she’s still OK, I think, but I need an ambulance ASAP,” Crawford said.
Documents reveal that hours earlier, Ms Crawford had texted her son.
“Hi, Joash dreamt about you last night. Hope you are doing well.xx,” she wrote.
Family and friends of Crawford, who denies the allegations, said his whole life was based on Christian values and to have done what is alleged “would have destroyed him”.
Crawford, in his police statement, said he arrived home about 6pm on July 29 to a chicken curry made by his wife.
Just hours before she was allegedly murdered at the hands of her military pilot husband one of the final messages sent by Frances Crawford was to a son.
“Hi, Joash dreamt about you last night. Hope you are doing well.xx”
Later that night or early the next morning Robert John Crawford, 47, strangled her in a “murderous rage” and set up a lawnmower accident alibi before she had a chance to leave her cheating husband for the final time, the prosecution alleges.
Frances – a mother of three – was found lifeless on her Upper Lockyer property in the early hours of July 30 next to a ride-on lawnmower at the bottom of a retaining wall.
Using scientific analysis the Crown allege it was a violent end for a relationship that started at a church camp nearly three decades ago.
The defence says it was a tragic accident after a reconciled marriage during which the couple had undergone counselling and Crawford’s eharmony account had been disclosed.
After an eight month separation Frances had allowed Crawford to return home on a probationary period for three months ending that July, according to the Crown.
Crawford said he played a bit of piano and tendered to a ride-on lawn mower that he managed to start despite battery issues.
He drove it to outside the house on their 60ha property as he planned to do some mowing the following day.
After dinner the couple read the bible, prayed and played some games before snuggling on the couch under a heated blanket watching tele for a period, Crawford told police.
At the same time he was dealing with a work issue over the phone due to someone receiving an electric shock.
Since 2019 Crawford, a Wing Commander with the RAAF who had been on multiple overseas deployments that had been tough on the marriage, had been based at Amberley.
Over the course of the evening Crawford said Frances asked him to move the mower before the sprinklers came on.
At 11.21pm Crawford received a message from his wife’s phone on Signal: “Hey are you going to put the mower away soon?”
He responded a few minutes later”: “just give me a sec” and “you can just turn the sprinklers off if easier too xx”.
Crawford said it was not unusual for the couple to message each other in the large house.
About 12.30am he messaged her that he was going to bed.
“Helllloooo? XX stop watching Korean Netflix and come to bed haha” a message to Frances read.
Five minutes later “hey i’m getting sleepy” he said.
Crawford told police he must have fallen asleep before she came to bed.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and reached over in bed to grab her hand,” he said in his police statement given on the morning Frances was found dead.
He said he jumped out of bed and had a look around the house for Frances, calling out for her and turning on lights.
At 3.30am his Garmin device recorded him taking 974 steps according to court documents.
Crawford said he realised the mower had been moved and looked around the backyard and “discovered what had happened”.
“When I looked over the back rock ledge, I saw the shadow of the mower down the embankment, lying on its side. I could see legs sticking out from underneath the mower and realised that it was Frances,” he told police.
“I immediately climbed down to where she was lying so that I could attend to her.
“I tried to pull her out, but she was pinned underneath. I tried lifting the mower up off her. I grabbed all different areas, trying to get enough grip to lift the mower, including the front bumper-bar, but it was too heavy.
Crawford said he eventually managed to pull his wife out and she was cold to touch.
“Frances was completely unresponsive and never at any stage gained consciousness,” he said.
He called Triple-0 and commenced CPR until paramedics arrived and she was pronounced dead.
According to his statement Crawford told police the couple had marital problems in the past but he believed they “were moving in the right direction.”
“When I say we were having problems, our problems stem from me being unfaithful during our marriage. I have been unfaithful on numerous occasions over the course of a ten-year period,” he said in the statement.
“I am not proud of these things and embarrassed by my actions.”
The crown have leapt on Crawford’s infidelity and said the marriage had not recovered.
“Mrs Crawford was set to leave Mr Crawford for the final time,” the Crown alleged in court documents.
“This angered Mr Crawford as he stood to lose financially and would likely to be required to leave the family home again.
“Mr Crawford’s frustration at his wife set him into a murderous rage.”
Frances had at times “felt very unsafe” and notes on her phone in 2024, Crawford’s statements and those of their children “paint the (bail) applicant as a domineering, elusive and aggressive man over a long period of time”.
It’s alleged in court documents that their three adult children are estranged from Crawford who, it’s said, they accused of being abusive, explosive, unpredictable, aggressive controlling manipulative with violent outbursts, and that they grew up walking on eggshells,
being fearful of the defendant.
The crown allege he strangled Frances to death pointing to his DNA on her fingernails from both hands, which the defence say is common for married couples.
The Crown points to blood found in their ensuite matching the DNA of both Frances and Crawford.
They allege he spent a significant amount of time manipulating the property so that it appeared Frances died by misadventure in a lawn mower accident. They allege he sent the message about moving the mower from Frances’ phone to himself.
A botanical expert engaged by the Crown opined the Ugg boots Frances was found in after her death were not worn onto the lawn adjacent to the house and he found it “highly unlikely” she would have put her sock on given a 20cm piece of grass was found between her toes.
The crown alleged this leaves a reasonable inference open that Crawford “put socks and Ugg boots on his dead or dying wife after he positioned her outside”.
The defence have been scathing of the scientific evidence underpinning the crown case against a man who has no previous convictions and they say “an impressive career in the armed forces and strong family and community ties”.
According to an autopsy report either a laceration to the scalp or fractures to the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage in the neck could have caused death with neither being more likely.
The defence, headed by Saul Holt KC, highlighted the report not being able to rule out, on pathological findings alone, that Frances, 49, was reversing the lawnmower at night and fell from it and then under it on the lawn under the retaining wall.
The report also noted two forms of asphyxia other than manual strangulation “may have occurred following the fall from and under the lawnmower”.
The report found the neck fractures significantly more likely due to manual strangulation than impacting the rock or lawnmower.
The defence said this “will be contested” and the injuries could have been caused by the lawnmower.
The location of Frances under the lawnmower creates an obvious candidate “in the steering wheel of the lawnmower” a defence bail submission said.
A biomechanical expert consulted by the Crown determined it “most improbable” that an accident with a ride-on mower could have resulted in Frances’s head impact at the top of the retaining wall and her body ending up further away from the wall than the mower itself.
He also concluded that the neck injuries suffered by Frances were “very rare” as far as traumatic fractures were concerned and it was unlikely that impact forces associated with the mower could explain them.
The defence argues the findings are qualified and “highly contestable”.
“If (the expert’s) assumption is wrong then the opinion falls away. If the opinion falls away then so too does a major plank of the prosecution’s case,” the defence argued.
The defence also cited a research paper which found combined hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage fractures were more common in transportation injuries and falls than being caused by strangulation.
Crawford’s lawyers said much of the evidence including claimed infidelity would be contested.
In an affidavit a Qantas pilot and friend of Crawford’s said he was not aware of any affairs by the accused.
“(Since Frances’ death) he had regularly burst into tears whilst we have been chatting” the man said.
“My experience is that Rob is genuinely a good person and has defined his whole existence by his Christian values.
“If he did something like this he would have already had told someone. It would have destroyed him.”
Crawford’s father, John Robert Crawford, who put up the $250,000 surety for the accused’s bail application said he had always “been a kind, loving and trustworthy son”.
“Robert is my son and I love him. He has my full support in relation to the charges,” he said in an affidavit.
Crawford was granted bail last week on conditions.
A committal hearing will be held in October
Originally published as Pilot charged with murdering wife told triple-0 operator he thought she was okay
$67k office reno, $4.6k stools, $3.5k cutlery: Qld’s Dept of Govt Excess
A minister tasked with driving “responsible expenditure” paid $67,000 to renovate her office, amid other examples of largesse laid bare in Right to Information documents.
Revealed: Mum in triple fire tragedy was on authorities’ radar
The mother of three young children who perished in a house fire had come to the attention of welfare authorities in all mainland jurisdictions except Queensland and the ACT.