Article: Go Card travel records point finger at murder accused

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Go Card travel records point finger at murder accused

Go Card travel records point finger at murder accused

August 16, 2012 - 5:42PM

A Go Card may help prove a Brisbane prosecution murder case.

A Supreme Court jury heard that Ashley Michael McGoldrick's Go Card history showed the 37-year-old travelled from his home suburb of Caboolture to Brisbane's Fortitude Valley by train and then on to Heal Street, New Farm, on the morning the Crown alleges 56-year-old Dianne Hawkins was killed in her Heal Street unit.

Prosecutor Brendan Campbell told the six men and six women on the jury that security footage of Mr McGoldrick's travels, combined with his Go Card history, which saw him board a bus an hour after disembarking from the same Heal Street bus stop on June 9, 2010, formed part of the Crown case against Mr McGoldrick, that he was the last person to see the pensioner alive.

The Crown alleged Ms Hawkins was killed sometime between 7.49am on Wednesday, June 9, when she spoke briefly with a neighbour on the phone, and 8.47am that same morning when Mr McGoldrick touched on his Go Card at a nearby bus stop.

Ms Hawkins' body was not discovered until June 16, when neighbours at the housing commission complex phoned police, worried about her welfare.

An autopsy revealed Ms Hawkins had bled to death after the left side of her neck was slashed with a knife with enough forced to sever her jugular and score her vertebrae.

Mr Campbell told the jury Ms Hawkins was found to have 26 injuries.

He said that while the jury would hear from the doctor who performed the autopsy that conditions in the unit were primed for mummification, making the time of Ms Hawkins' death difficult to accurately pinpoint, the prosecution would prove Ms Hawkins "didn't survive her encounter" with Mr McGoldrick, as shown by the lack of phone calls and bank transactions after that date.

Mr Campbell said the jury would hear that the unit's air conditioner had been left at about 20 degrees in the heat setting, which maintained temperature and lowered the humidity in the room, altering the usual rate a body would decompose in.

He said the prosecution would show that Mr McGoldrick had made plans with Ms Hawkins to visit and purchase morphine from her, but that shortly after arriving at Fortitude Valley train station at 7.13am on June 9, Mr McGoldrick walked into a nearby convenience store and purchased a knife and cigarettes.

Mr McGoldrick's DNA was found throughout the unit and on Ms Hawkins' body, Mr Campbell told the jury, including on a cigarette butt in a living room ash tray.

Mr Campbell said following Mr McGoldrick's visit, Ms Hawkins, who he described as a "heavy phone user", made no outgoing calls and there were no successful incoming calls.

She did not withdraw any money from her bank account and a notebook she religiously wrote in each day as a diary contained no notes after Wednesday, June 9.

Mr Campbell asked the jury to listen to the evidence from witnesses who claimed they had seen Ms Hawkins after that date, including a private school student who thought she had seen Ms Hawkins on Saturday, June 12, as she walked her dog down the street.

He said the prosecution believed those witnesses to be "mistaken", despite their testimony.

Mr Campbell said Mr McGoldrick had admitted to an altercation with Ms Hawkins after she attacked him on the day they believe she was murdered, claiming he owed her money for drugs.

Mr Campbell said Mr McGoldrick had told police that the pair struggled after Ms Hawkins produced a knife, but that he had grabbed the knife, cutting his hand in the process, and threw it away, before hitting Ms Hawkins and shoving her in self defence.

Mr McGoldrick claimed to police that Ms Hawkins was still alive and in a semi-conscious state after her fall and that he rolled her to her stomach so she would not choke, adjusted her night dress for modesty, took some morphine and Valium pills to calm down and left the unit.

Defence barrister Craig Chowdhury said his client did not dispute that someone had killed Ms Hawkins.

However, he said while there was no dispute that Mr McGoldrick had visited Ms Hawkins on the day she was alleged to have been killed and that he bought morphine from her, that there was an altercation and he later stole morphine and left, he "absolutely disputed" that his client stabbed Ms Hawkins "in any way" with "any knife" and "absolutely disputed he killed her".

Mr Chowdhury said Ms Hawkins was a known drug dealer and user who had been associated with "very violent men".

The trial, before Chief Justice Paul de Jersey, continues.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/go-card-travel-records-point-finger-at-murder-accused-20120816-24b3v.html#ixzz23h2wm6RP