Caroline Dela Rose Nilsson withdraws bail application as legal team tells Supreme Court: ‘We’ve got to get our ducks in a row’

A court has heard why an Adelaide mother charged with the bashing murder of her mother-in-law has abandoned her bid for freedom.

Caroline Dela Rose Nilsson withdrew her bail application in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Picture: Facebook

Caroline Dela Rose Nilsson, whose marathon murder trial in Adelaide last week ended in a hung jury, has abandoned her bail application as her legal team continues to search for a suitable home for her, a court has heard.

Nilsson, 29, was due to make her bid for release before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but the hearing was quickly cut short.

“I’m instructed today to withdraw the bail application in light of, firstly, the home detention report, and other material,” defence counsel Craig Caldicott said.

“We’re going to try and find some additional houses.”

Justice Chris Bleby, who oversaw Nilsson’s two-month trial, said the withdrawal was “perfectly understandable”.

“Once I read the home detention report I felt that this might be where you need to leave things for the moment,” he said.

Mr Caldicott said his client would “most probably” be making a future bail application.

“We’ve got to get our ducks in a row,” he told the court.

Caroline Dela Rose Nilsson (centre) with her defence counsel Heath Barklay (left) and Craig Caldicott (right). Picture: NCA NewsWire/Naomi Jellicoe

It is not yet known whether Director of Public Prosecutions Martin Hinton QC will proceed with another murder trial, and Nilsson’s defence say, if a retrial did occur, it would be unlikely to start before mid-2021.

They say the mother-of-three, who has already spent more than two years behind bars, should not be kept in custody after the hung jury.

Nilsson is charged with the bashing murder of her mother-in-law, 57-year-old Myrna Nilsson, at the home they shared at Valley View in September 2016.

The jury of four men and eight women heard Nilsson told police two or three men with “loud and angry voices” assaulted her, tied her up with speaker wire and tape, and ransacked the house.

During her trial, Caroline Dela Rose Nilsson’s defence team argued she was ‘so inherently unlikely’ to turn into ‘some sort of psychopath’. Picture: Facebook

Prosecutors argued her version of events did not make sense and alleged she staged the timeline and crime scene, but Heath Barklay QC, for Nilsson, said that idea was at odds with evidence before the court.

“It just seems … so inherently unlikely that this nice, young girl, loving mother, (with a) good relationship with Myrna, is just going to turn into some sort of psychopath,” he told jurors.

“(She) kills her mother the minute she gets home, drugs her kids, searches the internet for a while, disposes of the bloody clothes and then presents as a victim.

“It just doesn’t fit with the picture that you’ve got of this woman.”