Inside Sharon Graham’s horrific woodchipper murder of Bruce Saunders

When authorities were called to a secluded and leafy Queensland property to investigate the scene of a tragic, horrific accident they had no idea of the ‘Shakespearean’ drama that would soon reveal itself. New details of the case that shocked a nation.

When emergency services were first called to the peaceful rural property at Goomboorian, east of Gympie on the night of Sunday, November 12, 2017, they thought they were attending the scene of a macabre but tragic accident. But what they soon discovered was they dealing with a horrible crime.

When emergency services were first called to the peaceful rural property at Goomboorian, east of Gympie on the night of Sunday, November 12, 2017, they thought they were attending the scene of a macabre but tragic accident.

About 7.40pm, mild mannered Nambour butcher Bruce Saunders somehow fell headfirst into an industrial wood chipper at the property while he was cutting up trees with some friends and acquaintances.

The woodchipper had consumed his entire body above his thighs.

His friends and acquaintances – Gregory Lee Roser, 64, Peter Koenig, 66, and Sharon Graham, 63 – appeared as distraught as one might think someone would be after witnessing what must have been a horrific sight and sound.

The freak “accident” made headlines around the country, but was generally accepted as just that – a freak accident.

Police found the body of 54-year-old Bruce Saunders in the industrial wood chipper at a rural property in Goomboorian on November 12, after Peter Koenig and Gregory Lee Roser, called emergency crews and claimed he fell into the machine. Facebook

But in the months and years that followed that day, a very different story emerged - a story of greed and lust and an evil plot to kill a man and make it look like an accident.

Then-Gympie acting inspector of police Paul Algie initially said Mr Saunders death was not treated as suspicious.

“He was placing a tree into a tree shredder; he’s become entangled within the machine and has died as a result of his injuries,” he said.

“He was found by his two friends, they attempted to get him out of the machine and were unable to do so.”

Insp Algie said at a press conference on November 13, the day after Mr Saunders’ death, the scene was one the most harrowing things he had seen in his career “and one of the worst incident scenes I’ve ever seen”.

“There was nothing that could be done to save this gentleman,” he said.

The shocking and tragic death made front page headlines in November 2017.

“It was very hard to wrap our heads around yesterday when we got the news about Uncle Bruce, it’s a horrible incident,” his niece Katrina Harrington said in a heartbreaking Facebook post.

Mr Saunders’ sister Sussanne said his death was “so hard to come to terms with”.

Rookie Gympie Times reporter Joshua Preston began his cadetship with the paper three months after the “accident” and three days before the apparent sinister truth began to come out.

It was February 2018, and police announced they would be holding another press conference into the wood chipper death.

It was at that press conference they revealed the original narrative had been on shaky ground for some time.

Bruce Saunders’ death was regarded publicly as a tragic accident for three months, but police said information that emerged days after the incident revealed to investigators something else had happened.

“Information came to the detectives in the days following the death to indicate it was not an accident,” Wide Bay Burnett Detective Inspector Gary Pettiford told the assembled media.

“Nothing was wrong with the machine, including all safety features,” Insp Pettiford said.

Mr Preston said the case was “was really hard to believe … it sounded like something from a movie”.

After police confirmed a murder investigation had been launched, Mr Preston was part of a Gympie Times team that travelled to the property. It was on a country road about 20 minutes out of Gympie, and only accessible by driving further onto the block.

Mr Preston said the block was “sparse” with “lots of trees and forestation”, and the house was not visible from the crime scene.

“It was eerie at the presser, and it was very eerie at the property,” he said.

Police revealed they were investigating Bruce Saunders’ death as a murder in February 2018.

Being at the property was especially “uncomfortable” knowing what had happened, and left him feeling “a bit sick inside”.

“It was really hard to deal with; a man had died in a sinister way,” he said.

It was an experience that never entirely left Mr Preston, and he followed the trial and its resolution after leaving the Gympie Times in 2021.

“I think every time a development would come out I’d be back at the property at Goomboorian for at least a minute,” he said.

That it had left such a “mark” on him was an indication of its effect on emergency responders and police officers who first attended and had to scour the property for evidence; not to mention Mr Saunders’ family.

The “accident” that had shocked the entire community was, in fact, something far worse.

Graham, Roser, and Koenig were arrested and charged in late May 2018.

It would be years until the first legal domino formally fell, and Peter Koenig pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder in June 2022.

Gympie Times’ journalist Josh Preston, who went to the scene in February 2018 following revelations it was being investigated as a murder, said the “secluded” rural block about 20 minutes northeast of Gympie was “eerie”.

Koenig then gave evidence against Roser at his trial in September 2022.

Roser was found at his trial to have struck Mr Saunders to death with an iron bar while they were clearing trees at the property for their widowed friend.

Koenig said he felt Mr Saunders brush him as he fell.

“I turned around and had a look and he was laying on the ground. His eyes open a little bit. Greg (Roser) was there with the bar … and struck him a couple more times in the head,” Koenig said at Roser’s trial.

“I said what the f--- are you doing,” Koenig said.

“He said I think I’ve killed him.”

Sharon Graham (pictured), Gregory Lee Roser and Peter Koenig were arrested by police in May 2018.

Roser and Koenig then disposed of the body in the woodchipper, leaving only the legs protruding and claiming it to be an accident.

Koenig told the court he used a tree branch to push Mr Saunders into the machine.

The woodchipper was stopped “just to leave a bit of Bruce there I suppose … for the police to see it”.

Roser was working with Graham, who was Mr Saunder’s former partner and the sole beneficiary of a $750,000 life insurance policy, which had been increased by the victim the week before his death.

A secret recording captured by police in 2018, played to the court at the trial, heard Graham and Roser searching for medication side effects to explain inconsistencies in Roser’s police statements.

It was one of several secret recordings obtained by police across the investigation which helped crack the case.

Peter Koenig pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder. He gave evidence against Roser and Graham at trial. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

In October 2022, Roser was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in jail. He is appealing the verdict.

During his trial the court heard that when Mr Saunders met Sharon Graham after his first wife’s death and a second failed marriage, he believed he had found love again.

She had split up with Saunders, but he was allegedly still besotted with her.

They lived in a Nambour house they had bought, but in separate bedrooms, when Graham began dating Roser.

Koenig had also been in an intimate relationship with Graham for years, unknown to Saunders.

Koenig spent weekends at the Nambour house as Graham’s “male best friend”.

The court heard Saunders told many people, including his estranged wife, Bernadette Rogers, that he was determined to win Graham back.

Sharon Graham

“Once you were in Bruce’s life, you were in Bruce’s life for good,” Rogers told the court. “He was sensitive, loving, very generous. He would do anything for anyone.”

So when Graham asked Saunders to help clear her friend’s property with Koenig and Roser, he agreed – even if it meant juggling his work as a butcher.

He even paid for the woodchipper hire, the court was told.

Graham’s trial started a year later, in October 2023.

Throughout the trial the court heard Graham had procured Roser to kill Mr Saunders and he was “worth more dead than alive” to her.

Crown prosecutor Todd Fuller KC told the jury Ms Graham had been romantically linked to all three men, having started a relationship with Mr Roser shortly after she’d ended her relationship with Mr Saunders.

Mr Fuller said Mr Koenig and Ms Graham also had a “tortured friendship” which at some points had been intimate and sexual in nature.

Sharon Graham.

The jury was told Mr Saunders’ death was allegedly a direct result of Ms Graham’s planning to kill him for his $750,000 life insurance policy, for which she was the sole benefactor.

Mr Fuller said Ms Graham had allegedly “counselled or procured the murder” of Mr Saunders and the events leading up to his death were “of her design”.

It’s almost Shakespearean but his is no work of fiction,” Mr Fuller told the jury during his opening remarks.

“She was at home, a home Bruce Saunders owned and she shared with him as of November 2017, while Greg Roser was doing her bidding and ending Bruce’s life …,” Mr Fuller said.

“At the heart of it, this lady here … binds these three other men together.

“Three men who were so devoted to her and seemingly would do anything for her continued affection.”

Mr Fuller said Ms Graham allegedly planned to have Mr Saunders killed because “he was worth more dead than alive”.

The jury was told Ms Graham was also the sole beneficiary of Mr Saunders’ will, and set to inherit his house, car and savings.

Mr Fuller said police were initially told Mr Saunders had fallen into the woodchipper by mistake, and his body was destroyed with nothing left above the thigh.

A jury took less than a day to return a guilty verdict on the murder charge.

She was sentenced to life in jail. She too is appealing the verdict.

During her sentencing she was lashed by the judge for displaying “deep-seated psychopathy” in her plot to murder Mr Saunders.

Gregory Lee Roser and Sharon Graham were each found guilty of murder by a jury at separate trials. They were sentenced to life in jail. Roser and Graham are each appealing the verdicts. Credit: Supplied.

Mr Saunders’ son Blake’s heartbreaking victim impact statement, read to the court, revealed Graham had even asked to keep half of her victim’s ashes following his funeral.

“This (was) all part of your evil plan to make it look like you were grieving … but really it was you trying to hide your guilt,” Blake said in his statement.

“Little did I know then you planned, orchestrated and covered up my father’s murder. Consoling you at that distressing time will haunt me for the rest of my life,” he said.

“Then you requested my dad’s ashes be split in half so you could keep half of them.

“You are a despicable human.”

Mr Preston said it was this that painted the true picture of the legacy of what happened on that horrific night more than five years ago.

“The worst part is when you hear from Bruce’s son in the aftermath of the court verdicts,” he said.

He said the “family … has been torn apart” and Mr Saunders’ fate was something “he certainly didn’t deserve”.

“You’re certainly glad to see justice done, when it’s done,” Mr Preston said.

Originally published as Inside Sharon Graham’s horrific woodchipper murder of Bruce Saunders