Jury out in wife body in bin case

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The jury in the trial of a man accused of murdering his wife and dumping her body in a bin in Australia has been sent out to consider their verdict

Frederick Boyle, 58, originally from Peterston-super-Ely, Vale of Glamorgan, denies killing Edwina Boyle in 1983.

He told a court in Melbourne he found her with gunshot wounds to her head and one of his ties around her neck.

The couple emigrated from Wales with their two daughters in 1972. The jury will resume deliberations on Monday.

The defendant said he did not think police would believe him and admitted he had lied about her death ever since.

Motive

The court was told Mrs Boyle, then aged 30, went missing in October 1983 from their home in suburban Dandenong North, Melbourne.

Mr Boyle, who stayed in Melbourne, claimed she had run off with a truck driver called Ray - but her remains were found in 2006 in a 44-gallon drum kept at the family home.

Mrs Boyle's remains were found by their son-in-law in 2006 in a 44-gallon drum kept in the backyard of the family home at Carrum Downs, in Melbourne's outer southeast.

Prosecutors said Michael Hegarty had asked for 14 years what was in the drum and had been told it contained glue for carpet laying.

The court heard how he found a bag containing a skull, a leg bone and part of a pelvis inside. The bones were later identified as those of Mrs Boyle, and a post-mortem showed she died of a bullet wound to the head.

Mr Boyle told people his wife had run off with another man

The Victorian Supreme Court also heard from the couple's daughter, Careesa, who said she had heard her mother and father arguing about an affair Mr Boyle was having with another woman.

Ms Boyle said that within days of her mother disappearing, Virginia Gissara moved in with the family and stayed there for seven years.

The court was also told that the family moved to a caravan park and then to another house during the last two decades - taking the barrel with them.

However defence lawyer Jane Dixon said Mr Boyle did not have a motive to kill his wife.

Ms Dixon said her client did not dispute he had falsely claimed his wife left him, nor that she was murdered.

She said Mr Boyle was not the one who killed her.

Boyle had no motive to kill her, whereas others "may have had an opportunity to do so," Dixon told the court.