Scarsdale murder trial: week three wrap
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WEEK THREE
Witness who cannot be named #1:
- A 16-year-old girl living at the Scarsdale house where Timothy died.
- The same girl who Darren Wilson, 34, considered his new “girlfriend”.
- Had been living at the Scarsdale home for about four weeks, sometimes with her new baby who wasn’t there on January 5.
- Had never met Darren Wilson until a few days before the alleged murder.
- She told the jury she had put a status on Facebook asking for a new phone and that Wilson responded and said he would buy her one.
- Wilson dropped that phone off to her a few days before January 5.
- Asked if she had been in a relationship with Wilson, she said: “No, I already had a partner”.
- Told the jury that her and two others living at the Scarsdale home had been hearing noises sometime after midnight on January 5 and that they suspected there was prowlers outside.
- Said they contacted a man who lived nearby, Gerard Styles, and he came around to have a look – he couldn’t see anything.
- Said she was later asleep on the couch when she awoke to Wilson and another man standing in her lounge room.
- Said the other man had an axe and that she hadn’t known they were coming around.
- She said Wilson started talking about his cousin, Peter Williams, saying he owed him money and accusing him of being a pedophile.
- She said Wilson was “wanting to fight Pete” and told her to go and get him.
- She and two other women then drove to Peter Williams’ Smythesdale home and she said all three asked him to come over, because they were hearing noises.
- “Then Peter asked if we knew Darren Wilson,” she told the jury.
- “I said no…”
- She said Timothy was there too: “Peter asked Timmy if he wanted to come”.
- She said there was lots of fighting when they arrived back at her house, with Wilson and his co-accused appearing from the same room.
- “I started screaming, telling everyone to get out of my house,” she said.
- Said she saw the co-accused hitting Timothy outside, but she wasn’t sure if it was with an axe, a knife or his fists.
- Said she pleaded with the man to get off Timothy.
- “He told me to (expletive) off or I was next,” she said.
- “I didn’t know what to do.”
- Said she ran inside and tried to call the police before seeing Wilson walk out of the house and allegedly begin to punch Timothy.
- “He punched him several times in the back of the head,” she said.
- “Like angry, furious, very hard punches… one after the other, really fast.”
- She said she ran over to Peter Williams, who was sitting in his car “just staring” at the men allegedly attacking Timothy.
- She said she told Peter Williams to call the police before she and two others ran and hid in a nearby paddock “just in case they come after us.”
- Said she returned to the house when they saw police arrive and that Timothy was laying on the ground, “not moving”.
- Under cross-examination, the court was played a call this witness made to triple zero:
- “There has been a big bashing and I think someone has been killed,” she says to the operator.
- “I don’t know who they are… I’m hiding in a bush because they’re coming for me.
- “The people that were stalking the house have killed they kid.”
- She admitted, under cross-examination, that she had lied to the police at times because she feared Wilson.
- “He told us not to mess with him or we’d be (expletive),” she said.
Witness who cannot be named #2:
- Teenage male living at the house where Timothy died.
- Said he saw parts of the alleged attack on Timothy.
- Told the jury he saw the co-accused punching Timothy “like in a schoolyard… like a bully would.”
- Said he tried to get the co-accused off Timothy: “He just kept yelling ‘die (expletive), die’… I said ‘is it really worth going to jail for’ and he said ‘I’d rather go to jail’.”
- He said Timothy was screaming as he saw the co-accused lift an axe in the air and allegedly strike Timothy in the head.
- Said he then ran into the house to find the two girls he lived there with.
- Said they ran out a back door and kept running to a nearby paddock where they hid and called the police.
Leading Senior Constable Tony Walker:
- Linton police officer
- Told the jury of a conversation he'd had with Wilson in the days leading up to the alleged murder. He said Peter Williams had given him $150 which he wanted to give to Wilson.
- He also said Mr Williams told him to tell Wilson not to come near him or his family again.
- On January 3, 2013, he met Wilson on the side of a road to give him the money.
- Wilson told the officer that he would kill his cousin, Peter Williams.
- "He made a comment that I'll kill him," Leading Senior Constable Walker told the jury.
- "I then told him that you'd be stupid to do something like that and that you'd lose your security licence... He said it'd be worth it."
- He recalled the morning of January 5, about 5am, when he was woken by a call from a police sergeant in Ballarat and asked to attend an "incident" at the Scarsdale house.
- Leading Senior Constable Walker was told to rendezvous with other police at the Scarsdale general store.
- He said he was the first to arrive at the store and that Peter Williams was there in his car.
- Peter Williams told him that Wilson had Timothy and that he'd been hit, adding he'd gone to the girls house because they had prowlers.
- More police then arrived at the general store and they drove in convoy to the house.
- Police arrived at the house about 5.16am, it was still dark, and they could see a body of a young person on the ground.
- Asked by the prosecutor if he was deceased, Leading Senior Constable Walker said: "definitely".
- He said Timothy had extensive injuries to his head and that his tongue was hanging out of his mouth and blue.
- He said they could hear screaming coming from a nearby paddock and that three people living at the house were soon located by other police.
- "As you'd appreciate, there was just mayhem at the time."
- He said detectives from Ballarat and the homicide squad arrived shortly after.
Constable Timothy Dunstan, Ballarat police:
- Told the jury he on watch house duties on January 5, 2013, and received a call from Wilson's mother about 11am, reporting that her son had been assaulted.
- He then spoke to Wilson.
- Wilson told the officer he'd been assaulted by a boy with a baseball bat at a property in Sacrsdale about 2.30am.
- Wilson said the boy, named Timmy, also hit another man with the bat and that the man hit Timothy in the head with a "piece of wood".
- "Wilson asked me how Timothy was," Constable Dunstan told the jury.
- "Wilson said that he wanted police to come over to his house to take photos of his injuries and so he could make a statement regarding the assault."
Paramedic, Sarah Brennan:
- Arrived at the Scarsdale house at 5.26am.
- Observed a young boy on the ground, dead, with a large, deep, open wound to the right side of his head.
- She said there was lots of blood under the head and that two fingers had been cut off his left hand.
- "We decided that the deceased injuries were incompatible with life and we weren't going to proceed with resuscitation."
- "He was dead on arrival."