Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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After weeks in court, the final witness in Marie Crabtree's trial revealed a strange piece of evidence, something that could have been the final piece of the puzzle. I'm Stephen Stockwell. This is the third episode of The Case of Marie Crabtree.
The 59-year-old was accused of killing her son and staging it as a suicide.
In photos, Marie Crabtree smiled and posed with her children, but police allege she killed to receive life insurance payments. She allegedly told a friend, I want to put something in his drink so he won't be here. We will be alleging these are premeditated direct acts of murder.
All I'm willing to say at this stage is that Ms Crabtree intends on vigorously defending the charges.
Marie Crabtree was accused of killing her son. A jury found her not guilty, and I've been wondering whether the evidence that is the focus of this episode is what turned the case. It was a moment that you could have missed if you weren't paying attention, and therefore it was the ABC's court reporter in Brisbane, Talisa Seganto. Talisa, thank you for joining us.
Stocky, hello. Thanks for having me again.
It is our pleasure. This trial was about whether or not Marie Crabtree killed her son, whether she poisoned a smoothie that she made for him or whether he killed himself. And when that's the question, this final piece of evidence seems pretty crucial.
Yeah, right at the end of this trial, the jury was told about a discovery which was made in Jonathan's room after his death. Inside a bin was a crumpled up handwritten note. That note was shown to the jury and it was read out aloud. It said, hey mum, my Brian keeps telling me to do this. I want you, Marie, to have my share of the H. So the note ends on just that single letter.
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Chapter 2: What was the strange piece of evidence in Maree Crabtree's trial?
I mean, that's the inference. If you ask the defence, the prosecution says it's simply incomplete and indistinct. So there's just no way to know. Yeah.
And is this a suicide note? Is it a scrawl? Like, what are we looking at here?
Well, yeah, it depends who you ask. As I said, the prosecution doesn't think it's anything of significance. There was clearly spelling and grammatical errors, which didn't make sense. For the defence, though, they say it was clearly a final letter to his mother stating his wishes before he dies.
Yeah, wow. It's, yeah, such a kind of incredible item to be presented to a jury towards the end of this trial. I mean, Talisa, before we dive into kind of how this came up, how it was discussed, can you remind me of the motive here? Was the suggestion from the prosecution that Marie wanted to take the house that her son Jonathan owned with her daughter Tara?
Yeah.
So it was put to the jury that Marie was motivated by money. We've talked in the other episodes already about the fact that she was also on trial for fraud. That was in relation to making a claim on his death insurance. The situation with the house was talked about multiple times throughout the trial. We heard Tara and Jonathan... owned the house. Marie didn't have any claim to it.
She wasn't on the title. So although this wasn't put forward as a key motivation for this alleged murder, it was definitely suggested by the prosecution that Marie was going to be able to benefit from the fact that he was no longer going to be around.
And, I mean, this note, when you consider the motive that's being presented by the prosecution, seems so crucial, especially considering the not guilty verdict now as well. I mean, how is this presented in court?
It was actually barely touched on at first. It was introduced when the prosecution called its final witness, who was a detective. He was being asked about the things he found in the house during a search. So there was a number of photographs that were shown to the jury. We saw receipts. There was a bus ticket, I think some fast food packaging.
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Chapter 3: What did the handwritten note found in Jonathan's room say?
It's when we really learn what breadcrumbs they've been laying down over the course of that entire trial, the questions they've been asking around specific evidence. I mean, with these moments coming towards the end of the trial, how did the prosecution wrap all of this up?
Well, the prosecution spent most of its final arguments really just trying to defend Tara and her evidence, saying, you know, she was honest and reliable. They really wanted the jury to see past those inconsistencies we spoke about in the last episode, which was raised by the defence in her cross-examination. They said she only got minor details wrong and it was on pretty inconsequential things.
They said for the most part she'd provided a consistent account of what she said happened and reminded the jury that people do forget things. This happened a long time ago and that actually just made her more genuine. They rejected this idea Jonathan might have overdosed himself. And as for that note, the prosecution said it could not at all be considered a suicide note or a type of will incident.
because it didn't explicitly say he would do anything. They said the wording was strange, the phrasing was strange, and parts of it were indistinct. It was even suggested that all of the note wasn't written at the same time. Ultimately, the prosecution said the jury should doubt who wrote it, when it was written, and they just need to disregard it.
Okay. And I mean, Tara Crabtree, Marie Crabtree's daughter, we spoke a lot about, as you mentioned, Talisa, in our last episode as well. You know, Tara Crabtree's evidence was that she watched guard, basically, while Marie Crabtree prepared the smoothie. That was her evidence to the court during this trial.
And again, as we spoke about in the last episode, that was challenged really heavily by the defence barrister in this trial. The way that Angus Edwards went about these final statements to the jury was... kind of on par with just how strange this whole trial had been as well. What happened, Alyssa?
Well, it certainly wasn't boring, Stockie, I will say that. And look, this is the place where defence lawyers usually bring their A-games, and Angus Edwards didn't disappoint. His closings went for several hours, and as you say, he really narrowed in on Tara. He said her story was just completely fabricated, and... There was other evidence in the trial that disproved a lot of what she had to say.
At one point, he put it to the jury that it was possible that Tara killed her brother alone. And he called her cunning. He said she was devious. And he said that she had the most to gain from his death. He spoke about her legal protection from prosecution.
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Chapter 4: Is the note considered a suicide note or a final wish?
He said her immunity failed. allowed her to just walk away completely untouched. He even asked a rhetorical question, have the prosecution made a deal with the devil here? At other points in the closings, he compared Marie to Lindy Chamberlain. That was in response to the prosecution claiming she reacted callously to her son's death.
Right. He spent all of this time, Angus Edwards, building this case, you know, kind of focusing on Tara, you know, whether or not you can trust Tara. Maybe she was involved in this somehow. Was that his final pitch to the jury that it was Tara that they should be looking at?
I mean, the short answer to that is no. It isn't the defence's job to convince a jury something specifically happened. He even said, we don't know what happened. But he said there are several rational possibilities that could fit with the evidence. He actually said the most likely scenario was that Jonathan did overdose himself.
He reminded them of the fact that Jonathan's friends gave evidence during the trial and said he'd struggled with addiction and depression for years. And that he had a pattern of self-harm and obviously access to medications that, you know, could kill him. And of course, he spoke about the note. He said it shows that he was suicidal.
He tells the jury that they should question why the prosecution chose to wait so long to introduce this note. He accused them of trying to hide it. Mr Edwards said all of this was more than enough for jurors to be able to find. There was plenty of doubt.
Yeah, and that's it. All they need is reasonable doubt that Marie Crabtree has committed these acts and they'll find their way to a not guilty verdict. We do have the judge's directions following the closing statements, closing arguments from the barristers. And look, there's a lot going on in this trial, Talisa. How did the judge prepare the jury for their deliberations?
Well, it was thorough, as they always are. There was a lot to get through, as you say, in terms of summarising the evidence and explaining how they were to consider it. The judge also spoke about the note and he spoke about Tara's immunity and they were warned that they do need to scrutinise things in a certain way. So they were left with a lot to discuss in that jury room.
Yeah. And I mean, such a long closing, such a long trial as well. And while we know where the jury went now, they found their way to not guilty.
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Chapter 5: What was the prosecution's motive regarding Maree Crabtree?
They did have trouble almost immediately, right, Alyssa?
Yeah.
Yeah, pretty soon after they retired to deliberate, it was within a couple of hours they came back with their first note. They asked the judge, what do we do if we can't come to a unanimous decision? So they were clearly already having a challenging time. The judge said it was unusual for them to have come back so early to say this. Yeah.
He wasn't prepared at that point to give what is known as a black direction. He did a good job of explaining to them, you know, this was a very long trial and they had a lot of evidence to sift through. And it was very likely that they'd hit fatigue points. You know, we have to remember they had two days, two full days of closing arguments. Then on top of that, the judge's directions changed.
And then of course the five weeks of evidence and, you know, 60 plus witnesses. So he sent them home for the night, which I'm sure they were, they were glad to, they were glad to be having a rest. And then they were back again for another day of deliberations.
And so Lisa, you've mentioned the black direction there. Am I right in thinking that's basically just like, you know, a direction for the judge, which says, come on guys, you need to sort this out.
Effectively. So after eight hours of deliberating, they can be given a more formal direction. Just to say, you know, it's important that you go into the jury room and really consider this evidence as a whole and try and come to a unanimous decision. It's very similar to what they're told at the beginning of their deliberations, but there is an official direction that they can be given.
Basically, they just need to take their time and not try and rush to a verdict.
Okay, great. Thank you, Talisa. I mean, we do know that after deliberating for a couple of days, the jury did return a verdict. They landed on not guilty for Marie Crabtree. And in our first episode, right at the end, we talked about how there was something that made you wonder whether Tara was the turning point in the jury's decision-making. What was it that made you think that?
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Chapter 6: How did the note influence the jury's decision?
It goes even further when you have a jury who comes in and they're having to be explained what the four elements of murder are and things like that. So it's a lot for them to take in on top of all of this quite harrowing sometimes evidence as well.
Yeah, exactly. It's a very confronting process hearing about, you know, the death of a young man and the, you know, kind of the laundry, the dirty laundry of the people involved in this kind of being aired, you know, these messages, these conversations that you never think will be kind of discussed in public coming back and being talked about in these spaces is, it's a lot.
And, you know, the jury has to sit there, has to absorb all of that and then make a decision at the end of it. And in this instance, they've made the decision that Marie Crabtree is not guilty of the murder of her son, Jonathan Crabtree.
Chapter 7: What role did the police witness play in presenting the note?
Where's Marie Crabtree now?
Well, we know she's out in the community. She was found not guilty and she was able to leave court. As far as we know, she's still in Queensland living here and listening to the podcast apparently.
Yeah. We actually had an email to thecaseofatabc.net.au from someone who appears to be Marie Crabtree saying, we're doing a good job. So that's one for the resume, Talisa. If you have any questions as well, you'd like to get in touch with curiosities, statements, you can email us thecaseofatabc.net.au.
And maybe at some point, if we get lots of questions, we can drag Talisa back into the studio for another one of these episodes. Talisa, thank you so much for joining us for this, for taking us into the courtroom for the trial of Marie Crabtree. And explaining so much of the strange occurrences throughout that trial.
Thank you for having me.
Make sure you grab ABC Listen to keep up to date with the case of. Tell your friends, drop it in your group chat. We'll actually be back in your feed tomorrow. We have an update on the case of the two intruders. There were a couple of things in that trial that we were still restricted from telling you. Those restrictions have been lifted.
So I'll have an episode with James and Liz for you in the feed tomorrow. And next week, the coronial inquest into the death of Desi Freeman and to the police officers that he shot and killed, Neil Thompson and Vadim Duvard-Hodart, will start in Melbourne and we'll be taking you inside them as well. The Case Of is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.
This episode was reported by Talisa Seganto and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell. Our supervising producer is Greg Muller and our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson. Thank you to senior lawyer, our legal queen, Jasmine Sims, to the ABC Newsroom in Brisbane and also to audio studios manager, Eric George. This episode was produced on the land of the Turrbal, Yagura and Wurundjeri people.
Thank you.
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