Accused killer drank beer next to body
June 24, 2008
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A PERTH man drank beer with an accused killer with a body lying nearby, and later helped retrieve the victim’s remains to remove the head, a court heard.
Trevor Forrest, 58, is a key witness in the trial of Jason Hudock, 45, who was tracked down by police in the United States last year and extradited to Perth.
Mr Hudock is accused of murdering 40-year-old Lee Anthony Maunsell in October 1999, at a shed in the semi-rural area of Bullsbrook, in the Perth Hills, where the two men lived.
Forrest has already served time in jail for being an accessary after the fact by helping Mr Hudock dispose of the body.
Giving evidence at Mr Hudock’s trial in the Perth Supreme Court today, Forrest gave few reasons under questioning as to why he had helped Mr Hudock try to cover up the killing.
He told the court he received a phone call from Mr Hudock on the night he allegedly shot Mr Maunsell.
“He said he just shot Lee,” Forrest told the court.
“Was there any other discussion on the phone?” prosecutor Michael Mischin asked.
“Nuh,” Forrest replied.
He said that when he arrived at Mr Hudock’s converted shed in Bullsbrook, the two men “just sat down and started drinking a beer”, with the dead body lying on the floor.
“We had about half a dozen cans each, I suppose, and went to bed.”
“There was no discussion that night?” Mr Mischin asked.
“No.”
After they had slept, Forrest said, they wrapped the body in carpet and took it out to a bush block to burn.
The two then went back to the body some weeks later to find a more secluded spot to hide it.
Months after the body had been moved, Forrest and a friend went back to remove the head from the skeleton, he told prosecution counsel, so that evidence from the bullets would not be found.
Mr Mischin asked why he and a friend, not the accused, were involved in removing the head, which they did using a shovel.
“Whose idea was it, that the head might be found?” Mr Mischin asked.
“Jason was a bit worried about it,” Forrest said.
“I just said I could cut the head off because he had to go to work.”
The trial continues.
By Jo Prichard
Comments
3 Responses to “Accused killer drank beer next to body”
Got something to say?
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ADG
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sound?
ADG