The man who murdered Kangaroo Flat woman Samantha Kelly has told the Supreme Court that attempts were made to induce a fatal drug overdose before he later killed her with a hammer.
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Peter Arthur was yesterday called as a witness in the trials of his former partner, Christine Ann Lyons, and housemate Ronald Lyons, who are accused of plotting with Arthur to kill Ms Kelly.
Ms Lyons and Mr Lyons have both pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder.
Read more:
- OUTCOME: Jury finds Christine Lyons guilty of Samantha Kelly murder
- Day 1: “Desperate” desire for children behind Samantha Kelly murder: Prosecution
- Day 2: Murder accused wanted child of her own, witness says
- Day 3: Accused wanted victim to go on "permanent holiday", court hears
- Day 4: Lawyer challenges witness who says she heard plot to kill victim
- Day 5: Witness tells court she heard murder
Arthur told the court that Ms Lyons had Ms Kelly come into the main house at their Kangaroo Flat property to have a drink, and Ms Kelly was given a drink spiked with medications.
He said he prepared the drink and Mr Lyons crushed the tablets, and the intention was that Ms Kelly die.
“Ronald and Christine wanted her to… have the overdose so they could – so Christine could – could have her children,” Arthur said.
Arthur said a couple of days later Ms Lyons tried to obtain OxyContin for Ms Kelly’s drinks but was instead prescribed another medication, which was purchased along with Phenergan.
That night, he said, Ms Kelly was given four spiked drinks.
He said following afternoon there was a discussion with Ms Lyons and Mr Lyons to give Ms Kelly more tablets and tell her the doctor had prescribed them for her.
The court heard he took two Phenergan tablets and a glass of water to Ms Kelly in the unit at the back of the property.
“Was it your intention that Samantha live or die?” Crown prosecutor Fran Dalziel asked.
“At that stage, I wanted Samantha to live,” Arthur replied.
He told the court that Ms Lyons took more tablets out to Ms Kelly that evening.
The court heard the following day Arthur gave Ms Kelly some 15 tablets, which he said Ms Lyons gave to him, and Mr Lyons also went out to give her tablets. Arthur said the next day, he and Ms Lyons gave Ms Kelly more.
Arthur told the court that that night, Ms Lyons said the tablets were taking too long “to do the job”, and about 12.30am she and Mr Lyons said it was “time to make sure… Samantha was dead”.
He said he and Mr Lyons went out to the unit and into the bathroom, where he kept tools. “He picked up the hammer and said ‘This is what you’ll use’,” Arthur said.
He told the court he returned to the main house and drank before returning to the unit.
Arthur demonstrated to the court how he hit Ms Kelly in the middle of the forehead with the hammer.
He said he hit her again and “blacked out”, before going into the main house and telling Ms Lyons “the job had been done”.
Arthur said Ms Lyons then told Mr Lyons to check Ms Kelly was dead. He said Mr Lyons came back in and said “Yes, you’re the mother of the four children”.
He told the court Ms Lyons said “About time”, while he cried.
He said Ms Lyons spoke of wanting to change two of Ms Kelly’s children’s names, and Mr Lyons said this was a good idea.
Arthur said Ms Lyons told him to say that Ms Kelly had walked out on her children at 2.30am, and that she had told Ms Lyons that she wanted nothing to do with her children. He said Ms Lyons told the children their mother did not love them anymore.
About 2.30am the following morning, Arthur told the court, he and Mr Lyons removed Ms Kelly’s body from the unit.
“I went out there with Ronald and we carried Samantha’s body from the unit outside, out to the gates, where Christine had opened the gates, and we put Samantha’s body in the back of [a] vehicle on a blue tarpaulin,” he said.
The court heard that Arthur drove towards Maryborough before pulling off the main road and into the bush, where he left Ms Kelly’s body in a creek bed.
Arthur said he cleaned up the unit and removed the couch on which Ms Kelly had died.
He said he later spoke to the media, telling them Ms Kelly had “taken off at half past two in the morning”, and told this same story to police.
In his second interview, the court heard, Arthur changed his story and confessed to killing Ms Kelly, but told the police Ms Lyons and Mr Lyons had nothing to do with it. He told the court he was trying to protect them.
The court heard that Arthur agreed to tell his lawyer he was threatening Ms Lyons and Mr Lyons in response to a letter from Ms Lyons.
“I still thought that we were married. I loved her,” he replied when asked why.
The court heard that Arthur told police in September 2016 that Ms Lyons and Mr Lyons were involved. He said he had found out he was not actually married and “it was about time the truth came out”.
Under questioning from Ms Lyons’ lawyer Peter Kilduff, Arthur said he had told lies “up until I was re-interviewed”.
He denied he was a “woman basher” or a violent man, but agreed it was a contradiction having killed Ms Kelly.
The court heard that a post-mortem revealed Ms Kelly had suffered significant blunt force trauma to her head, from at least seven impacts but likely more.
Mr Kilduff asked if Arthur had “smashed a person’s skull in... seven times” because Ms Lyons asked him because she wanted a child, to which Arthur replied “Yes”.
The jury was shown footage, filmed by a media outlet, in which Arthur said Ms Kelly had left in the night and joked with the reporter.
Mr Kilduff asked Arthur if he was a “callous, violent” man, to which he said yes.
The lawyer also put to Arthur that Ms Lyons was not there that day “pulling strings” and he himself had maintained the lie Ms Kelly was missing, to which Arthur replied yes.
During this cross-examination, Arthur said he lied in his first police statement in February 2016, conceding he did so to throw police off the scent.
He admitted he told lies in this statement about his first time meeting Ms Kelly and collecting rent from her, but said there was no reason for these untruths.
He said it was also a lie when he said to police on that occasion that Ms Kelly would sometimes look as though she had been using drugs, and agreed that no one had made him say that lie.
The court heard Arthur lied when reporting to police that Ms Kelly had told him about threats against her, but denied Mr Kilduff’s suggestion he was trying to cover up intimate knowledge about her.
But Arthur said it was true, as in his statement, that he had no run-ins with Ms Kelly aside from when she was in a mood and told him to “f—k off” for no reason.
The court heard Arthur confessed to the murder in an interview days after his first statement, after he was played a video in which Ms Lyons said she thought he had killed Ms Kelly.
Arthur told police Ms Lyons and Mr Lyons had nothing to do with the murder in this interview, the court heard.
“That was the first bit of truth that you told in this whole matter, wasn’t it?” Mr Kilduff asked, to which Arthur replied “No”.
The court also heard that Arthur had lied in a later interview and statement made in September 2016, in which he said at the time he was going to tell the truth of the matter.
Arthur told the court he had lied in this interview when he said Ms Kelly had come at him with a hammer and that Ms Lyons had not sent him out to the unit that night.
But he said that it was true in this statement that he did not want Ms Kelly to be killed.
The court then saw a video of the February police interview, in which Arthur said she was “not fit to be a mother”, but he told the court this was not how he felt about her.
Arthur also told the court that Shiralee Lyons, who the jury has heard from as a witness, had been party to a conversation in which Ms Lyons asked her to take Ms Kelly somewhere and ensure she did not come back.
He said in the course of this conversation, Ms Lyons said the purpose was so she could have Ms Kelly’s youngest child, and she wanted “complete control” over the children.
Arthur told the court he was also party to a conversation with Ms Lyons and Mr Lyons towards mid-January, in which they said Ms Kelly was not a good mother and discussed drink-spiking.
The court heard Arthur and Ms Lyons first formed a romantic relationship as teenagers, which ended when he asked her to marry him.
Arthur said he reconnected with Ms Lyons some 20 years later, and the pair were later married.
The court heard Arthur believed the pair were legally married until he learnt while in prison that the paperwork had not been filed.
The trial continues.