By Adam Cooper
A man has been found guilty of murdering his estranged wife in her Phillip Island home, after a jury rejected a theory by defence lawyers that she took her own life in the minutes after he assaulted her.
Adrian Basham, 45, was on Thursday found guilty of murdering Samantha Fraser in the garage of her Cowes home on July 23, 2018, the day after she celebrated her 38th birthday with friends and family.
Samantha Fraser died in her Phillip Island home in 2018.Credit: Nine News
Basham’s lawyers urged a Supreme Court jury to find the former construction worker not guilty, submitting that although he entered his former partner’s home, lay in wait and then surprised and assaulted her, Fraser was alive when he left just after 12pm.
The jury deliberated for about a day and a half but ultimately rejected the defence argument that Fraser died by suicide, and found Basham criminally responsible for the pyschologist’s violent death.
Justice Lesley Taylor remanded him in custody for a pre-sentence hearing on September 19.
Fraser’s friend and colleague, Alice Bradley, said the verdict was a relief.
“I’m pleased it’s over and with the verdict. It means the family can move on and start to rebuild their lives, although it will never be the same. It’s been a long four years,” she said.
Adrian Basham (right) outside the Supreme Court during his trial.Credit: Paul Jeffers
Another friend, Lija Matthews, said she and others had waited a long time for confirmation of Basham’s guilt.
“We knew the truth from the start and we have waited 1368 days for it to come out,” she said.
“There’s a sense of relief, but nothing will bring our beautiful Sam back.”
Matthews said Fraser was “absolutely terrified” of her estranged husband. Her death prompted her friends to start an organisation, Change for Sam, that supports victims of family violence.
Fraser and Basham were married for about 10 years and had three children together, but the trial heard he was controlling and abusive during their relationship, which ended near Easter 2017.
Over the following months, Fraser confided to friends, family, colleagues and counsellors that she feared Basham and believed he tracked her physically and electronically.
In April 2017, police took out an intervention order on Fraser’s behalf, making it illegal for Basham to contact her.
Prosecutors argued Basham blamed Fraser for their marriage breakdown, was upset at being unable to see his children and told friends his estranged wife was having affairs with men in her neighbourhood.
Fraser reported to a counsellor Basham once told her: “If I can’t have you, no one will.”
One of Basham’s friends gave evidence that he said: “She will pay. Just you watch, she’ll pay.”
Despite Fraser’s concerns throughout 2017 and into the following year, the trial heard that by winter 2018 her mental and physical health had improved, she was happy and exercising, had entered a new relationship and her friends saw her positive and relaxed at her birthday party.
But the following day, Basham parked his motorcycle near Fraser’s house and was captured on CCTV footage wearing a hoodie over his head. He entered her home and waited until Fraser returned in the late morning after dropping their children at school and meeting friends for coffee.
Samantha Fraser (left) and CCTV images of Adrian Basham on his motorcycle and outside her home.
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC, told the jury in a closing address last week the evidence showed Basham ambushed and then assaulted Fraser, put a rope around her neck and arranged the scene to appear that she killed herself. He then ran from the house at 12.04pm and rode his motorcycle to his father’s home in Gippsland.
Rogers dismissed the defence argument that Fraser died by suicide as an “absurd proposal”.
She told the jury Basham’s size and fitness meant he was capable of manipulating the crime scene to suggest suicide, his DNA was found under Fraser’s fingernails and on the rope, and the bruises on her hands and fingers and a scratch on his nose indicated she fought for her life.
Basham later told his father he suffered the scratch on his nose during a trip to Gippsland.
Fraser’s friends gave evidence that she adored her children, had plans for the future and never spoke of suicide.
The prosecutor told the jury Fraser’s death was a premeditated murder, committed by Basham, who left his mobile phone with a friend in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs and rode to Phillip Island, where he stayed with another friend and went to his estranged wife’s home the next day.
“This was not a suicide. Samantha Fraser did not kill herself after being assaulted so extensively by the accused,” Rogers said.
“It was a cold and brutal murder, and it was Adrian Basham who did it.”
Defence counsel Ashley Halphen admitted Basham “conducted himself poorly” by breaching the intervention order and assaulting Fraser. But the lawyer told jurors they couldn’t be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt the accused man killed her.
This was not a suicide. Samantha Fraser did not kill herself after being assaulted so extensively by the accused
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers, SC
“It is reasonably possible on the evidence that Samantha Fraser suicided,” Halphen said last week.
In the hours before her death, Fraser sent a text message to her art teacher saying she wouldn’t attend a class that day. Prosecutors argued Fraser said she was unwell because she didn’t want to go, whereas Halphen argued the message could have indicated her mental state was low.
There was evidence Fraser was severely depressed in early 2018, Halphen said, and she had told her new boyfriend that her birthday in 2017 was horrible and made her consider suicide. It was possible that a year on she considered suicide again, the defence barrister argued.
He said Basham had no knowledge of the rope in the garage, and argued Fraser inadvertently transferred her former partner’s DNA onto it.
Halphen said Basham expelled a lot of “hot air” in what he said in the year before Fraser’s death and questioned why he would make the remarks if he intended to kill her.
He urged jurors to equate reasonable doubt to a crack in the wall of the prosecution case, but the latter held firm and the jury found Basham guilty of murder.
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