A 62-year-old woman has gone on trial in Brisbane accused of orchestrating the murder of her ex-partner, whose body was fed through an industrial woodchipper in a plot to gain his inheritance.
Sharon Graham, formerly of Nambour, pleaded not guilty on Monday in the Supreme Court to the murder of Bruce Saunders at a rural property in Goomboorian, about 70km north-west of the Sunshine Coast, on 11 November 2017.
Crown prosecutor Todd Fuller KC told the jury that Graham procured Greg Roser to kill Saunders, and then with the help of Peter Koenig, fed a substantial portion of his body into a woodchipper to disguise the murder as an accident. Fuller said Graham, who was on Centrelink benefits at the time, wanted Saunders dead to gain ownership of his house and car, along with a combined $830,000 payout from his life insurance and superannuation.
Fuller described the act as 'incomprehensible and barbaric', alleging that after Roser struck Saunders with an iron bar, Koenig helped carry the body to the chipper and ran it through while holding the legs. Koenig, who has been promised a reduced sentence, is expected to testify that Graham instructed him to lie to police.
Graham's defence barrister, Peter Richards, conceded she was the beneficiary of Saunders's estate but denied she asked, counselled, or procured anyone to kill him. The trial, before Justice Martin Burns, is expected to last two more weeks.
