Phillip Alastair Harris trial: Murder accused tells detectives ‘hero’ story of ‘trying to catch a killer’

The jury has heard an interview taken hours after a Toowoomba pensioner was found dismembered inside his home, in which the neighbour accused of his murder told detectives he stumbled upon the crime scene before setting it alight.

Toowoomba man Phillip Alastair Harris has been in custody since his arrest on the night of the fire which he says he lite after going to Mr Weavers home and finding him dead.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said unknown DNA was found on the victim’s genital region, this was not the case, unknown DNA was found on four locations of the victim’s jeans including the zip and button.

Less than 24 hours after firefighters found a man dismembered inside his home alongside his dog, the murder-accused neighbour told detectives he stumbled upon the crime scene and “played cop” inside the Toowoomba home before dousing it in petrol and setting it alight.

Before the Toowoomba Supreme Court on Tuesday, November 19, Phillip Alastair Harris pleaded not guilty to mutilating and murdering the quiet 63-year-old, Peter Weaver, and his partially blind staffy Max in December 2019.

The court heard post-mortem and forensic examinations showed the father of four was stabbed to death inside his bedroom before being dismembered in a bathroom, however he also had fractures to his face from blunt force trauma.

The 34-year-old tradesman, Mr Harris pleaded guilty to arson.

Toowoomba roofer Phillip Alastair Harris, 34.

The court has heard that Mr Harris was arrested on the night of the fire with a blood alcohol reading of .226, after a number of witnesses told police they saw a vehicle matching the description of Mr Harris’s Ute driving from the crime scene with no headlights on minutes before 8 Rivett St was engulfed in flames.

During the 10-day trial the jury heard a topless, “bubbly,” and “energetic” Mr Harris loitered in the street drinking while emergency services worked to contain the “inferno”.

An officer had to repeatedly tell Mr Harris to move away when he tried to walk past the police cordon.

The arson confession

On Tuesday, November 26, the jury was shown two police interviews with Mr Harris during of which he referred to the victim as “Paul” or “Peter,” despite footage from an earlier altercation between the pair showing he knew the man and often called him “Pete”.

In the earlier interview about 8am Mr Harris told officers he didn’t leave his home.

The second interview occurred about 1pm after investigators reviewed video footage from the front of Mr Harris’ home and the dash camera in his Ute that recorded its movements.

The footage showed Mr Harris making a number of trips to Mr Weaver’s home which was about 100m from where he lived in independent unit downstairs from his sister Myf Levingston on MacArthur St, next door to his parents Ann and Terry Harris.

The distance between murder accused Phill Harris’s independent unit and his alleged victim's home 63-year-old Peter Waver who lived alone with his local staffy Max. Picture: Google Maps

Mr Harris said he may have left his home to get snacks or go 4-wheel driving – he wasn’t sure because he’d “blacked out” from when his mate left to when emergency services swarmed a nearby street.

However, that changed when officers said a car and man similar to him, had been placed at Mr Weaver’s home.

He then said he may have gone to the home to buy the man’s prescription medication Xanax, as he had allegedly done in the past.

It was then put to Mr Harris that a car similar to his was seen revisiting out of Mr Weaver’s home without its headlights on minutes before the fire.

After about 10 seconds of silence, Mr Harris put his hands to his face, sighed, and said “all right this is where I’m in trouble,”.

“I’ll lay it out for you,” he told the investigators.

Mr Harris told the officers he did go to Mr Weaver’s home for Xanax which is when he found the man “chopped up”.

“I was very drunk,” he said.

“I come across, um, the body of Peter. I’ve taken a photo on my phone which is why my phone’s wiped, I thought well that’s stupid.

“Because I went into the house to see what’s going on. I was back and forth a bit trying to figure out what to do, um, because my DNA and footprints.

“I stood in the blood. I left a pair of thongs there because I’d stood in it, um, stupidly being drunk I don’t know what to do, I have lit the house on fire to destroy evidence of me being there.

“I just know I’m in trouble for it, um, there was a f-king dead body there.”

Police and fire investigators at the South Toowoomba crime scene on December 16, 2019. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Murder accused says he was trying to be a hero

Later in the interview when asked about taking and deleting the photo Mr Harris laughed and said he took it for evidence, “I was looking for a person in the house… it was a drunk plan playing cop I guess,” he said.

Detectives then asked Mr Harris to go into as much detail as possible as to what he did and saw and he started off by saying he went to the back door and found Max – however firefighters found the dog near the back door along with Mr Weaver’s lower limbs.

“The dog, he’s dead… I then noticed parts that’s there’s, um, pieces of, it is Peter isn’t it? Peter or Paul?”

“I didn’t know what was… I didn’t know if it was real or not. I touched it and it was real and it had been there for a while.

“I went to, um, follow, I followed the, there was blood trails, smeared… I’ve gone and seen the bathroom which had a lot of blood in the shower and in the bedroom there was a lot of blood on the mattress and some flicks of blood on the wall.

“At this stage I’ve gone… home and had a drink, had a smoke, tried to figure out what was going on, gotten back and still trying to figure out what to do.”

He said he went home again to get petrol to “cover (his) existence of being there”.

“I contemplated calling police but me being drunk, and that being there… and I hadn’t (called) straight away, I just didn’t know what to do.”

The investigators told Mr Harris they needed him to break down what he saw inside 8 Rivett St in more detail.

8 Rivett St after the fire. Picture: Kevin Farmer

He said it looked like Max had been “cut or sliced with a knife or tool or something”.

“Just past Max… I saw what looked to be an elbow, um, just wrapped in carpet or on carpet… (it’s) very hazy being blackout didn’t help.

“I then touched it and realised it was part of a full arm and I realised that there’s more than just that.”

Mr Harris said he didn’t see Peter’s face as the torso and head was facedown, however firefighters had found it on its back.

“(I saw) drag marks, bloody drag marks, um I’ve thrown up at some stage I don’t remember where,” he said.

“I’ve gone firstly to see if anyone’s in the house thinking I would be a hero and catch a, catch a killer or something.”

He then drew a layout plan of the upstairs rooms, marking where he found Mr Weaver’s body parts, Max, and detailed the blood stains he found in the room where forensic evidence showed Mr Weaver bled to death.

He said he moved the heavily bloodstained mattress into the yard, and when asked why, he responded “I have no idea”.

Harris admits to stealing “dead man’s TV,” beer

When asked why he did not call the police, he reference an altercation he had with Mr Weaver in the past when he allegedly went to the home to buy the man’s prescription Xanax.

“I don’t know why I didn’t… I went exploring to see if there was anything in the house,” he said.

Mr Harris was asked what he was doing inside the house for an hour or so.

“I was sitting on the couch trying to figure out what to do… I got a beer out of the fridge… I was in shock,” he said.

For the first time in the interview detective’s put to Mr Weaver that neighbours heard a power tool being used inside the home.

“There was a power tool in the house… an Ozito circular saw… in the bathroom,” he said.

During the trial, the court heard the electric handheld saw was found in the lounge room, and evidence showed it was likely used to dismember Mr Weaver in the bathroom.

Officers found a number of Ozito tools in Mr Harris’s shed along with an open packet of circular saw blades which was missing the 24-tooth blade.

The saw found next to Mr Weaver’s remains, some of which were placed on top of a bloody mattress, had a 24-tooth blade attached.

Investigators at the South Toowoomba crime scene following the house fire on Monday, December 16, 2019. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Detectives then asked Mr Harris why he left the home.

“I had to get out of there, I felt sick, the smell… the blood it was disgusting and I went home and I got more to drink,” he laughed.

The Crown alleged Mr Harris left the home to retrieve the saw – CCTV shows him returning in different clothing with an overflowing backpack with a black cord dangling from it.

When asked how he lit the home on fire he said he retrieved a green jerry can with petrol from his shed, and poured it on where he walked and anything he touched – which included Mr Weaver’s body parts.

He said he used a blue lighter to light the fire – a blue lighter was later found by police inside his washing machine.

When asked why later in the interview he said “the easiest way to destroy something is with fire”.

“Obviously I did a pretty sh-tty job,” he said.

Chilling circular saw admission

When it was put to Mr Harris that he was present at the home when power tools were heard running he made an odd admission.

“I touched it… turned it on,” he said.

He later said he only used it for about 20 seconds and the blade was jammed.

When asked if he dismembered and killed Mr Weaver he responded, “no, that’s disgusting,” he said.

“I liked Peter, he was a decent person… he didn’t deserve that.”
The court was told on the night of the fire “during an unguarded moment,” Mr Harris told a neighbor he didn’t like the man whose house was on fire.

Toowoomba man Phillip Alastair Harris was charged with the murder of Peter Weaver who was found dead in a fire at his Rivett St house in 2019.

He told officers he couldn’t recall removing anything from the house before setting it on fire – however that changed when investigators told him CCTV showed him removing a TV from his car.

“I stole his TV,” when asked why he laughed, “I was burning his house so I took the one thing of value in the place… I was destroying.”

In crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald’s closing address, she said that comment showed the animosity and disrespect Mr Harris had for the man, to not only steal a dead man’s TV before but then leaving the man to burn alongside his best mate and belongings.

The line of questioning returned to Mr Harris’s actions inside the home before he set it on fire.

He said when he touched Mr Weaver’s arm, it was “cold… morbid… jelly like,” and hypothesised although he found the saw in the bathroom there wasn’t a lot of blood on the walls

“If it had been used in there, the tool, to cut him up in there you’d expect there to be a splash,” he said.

“When I turned it on nothing sprayed out or anything like that.”

When asked why he touched the saw and turned it on he said, “I thought that’s what has been… probably because I thought it should have been covered in (blood) but it wasn’t,”.

“The purpose was to move the blade… I don’t know (why),” he laughed.

“(I was) just being an idiot and go touching things where someone’s died.”

8 Rivett St on Tuesday, December 17, 2019. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Discrepancies were put to Mr Harris, including why the dog was found downstairs, and the saw in the lounge room, he was sure, maybe Max was alive, and maybe he moved the saw.

“I picked Max up, I was upset over Max, I don’t know (where or if) I moved him,” he said.

He was challenged as to why after throwing up he sat on a couch in front of a dismembered body dead body, staring at a Netflix home scene, and turned on a power tool in a room with a large amount of blood that was likely used in the murder.

“I mean my initial reaction was sickness then that turned into curiosity, that got the better of me (so) I spent time there… I shouldn’t have been… (then) I was trying to figure out what to do,” he said.

He said no one else went to the house with him, spoke with him while he was there, or helped burn it down.

The ‘unluckiest man in the world’

At the end of the interview, Mr Harris alleged Mr Weaver had “issues” with other people going to his home for drugs, which prosecutor Friedewald told the jury was one of many lies he made to distance himself from the alleged murder.

Ms Friedewald told the jury the circumstantial evidence was “damning” and if Mr Harris’ “fanciful” and “ludacris” versions of events were true then he was the “unluckiest man in the world”.

She noted there was a 12 minute window from when Mr Weaver was said to have last used his phone, to when Mr Harris was seen walking to the man’s house.

For someone else to have killed and dismembered Mr Weaver, undetected, in those minutes, was an extraordinary proposition, she said.

Ms Friedewald said his behaviour was not the normal reaction of someone who came across such a horrific scene – helping themselves to beers in the fridge, moving furniture around, and stealing the dead man’s TV.

Ms Friedewald noted the man had purposefully ripped open the forensic suit he was placed in while at the watch house, urinated on the floor, and rolled in it.

“Your detectives won’t find anything now,” he told watch house staff.

Defence argues a third person killed Mr Weaver

In barrister Douglas Wilson’s closing address to the jury he said the crime was horrendous and horrific, but they shouldn’t think for a moment that police had the right man.

Mr Wilson, assisted by junior counsel Wesley Seewald and instructed by MacDonald Law’s Ryan McCullough, told the jury DNA results taken from the home showed a third person was involved.

Police in Rivett St, Monday, December 16, 2019. Picture: Kevin Farmer

He said DNA that did not belong to the murder accused or victim, was found under Mr Harris nails and jeans, a shirt on the bedroom floor, on a hallway door, and on a half-full beer bottle in the back yard which also had Mr Harris and Mr Weaver’s DNA.

During the trial Justice Thomas Bradley told the jury there was no suggestion that the DNA that belonged to unidentified human beings related to one person.

Ms Friedewald noted the fragility of DNA, especially in the fire-affected home, stating Harris’s thongs in the bathroom came back negative to his own DNA.

Mr Wilson says the thongs were not Mr Harris’ and pointed to his co-operation with police, stating if he had murdered and dismembered Mr Weaver, police would have undoubtedly found his DNA on Mr Harris who was spotless.

He noted a neighbour said she saw a short man with sandy-coloured hair in Mr Weaver’s backyard that evening not his tall, redhead, and tattoo-covered client.

Contrary to Ms Friedewald’s statement that DNA evidence “was not the be all and end all,” Mr Wilson said it was and it told a story, which was that a third person was involved and Mr Harris was innocent.

The jury began deliberating at 1pm on Thursday, November 28.