A Victorian court has heard graphic details about the condition in which a man’s body was found at his home in 2023.<\/p>\n
Warning: This story contains details some readers might find confronting.<\/p>\n
Pictures were carved with a box cutter into the torso of the elderly man, his eyes were gouged out and his dead body covered with a curtain in his Western Victorian home, the Supreme Court of Victoria was told.<\/p>\n
Jodie Hill, 45, is on trial for murder over the death of 72-year-old Dimboola man John Hunter.<\/p>\n
Mr Hunter was found dead in his home on Victoria Street on the evening of January 23, 2023.<\/p>\n
Ms Hill maintains her not guilty plea to the single charge of murder.<\/p>\n
The court heard Senior Constable Stuart McLeod, positioned at the Nhill station in 2023, attended Mr Hunter’s residence and confirmed his death at about 5:30pm.<\/p>\n
Pictures carved in skin<\/p>\n
Giving evidence, Senior Constable McLeod said he had been asked to perform a welfare check on Mr Hunter, who had been uncontactable for days.<\/p>\n
The jury heard that on his way to Mr Hunter’s house, Senior Constable McLeod received a message from police communications that there was a reported death at the residence.<\/p>\n
“I could smell a deceased body so I was following that smell because it got stronger and stronger,” Senior Constable McLeod told the court.<\/p>\n
He told the court he found Mr Hunter in an empty bedroom, with a grey curtain over his stomach, waist and thighs.<\/p>\n
“It appeared he was wearing a black T-shirt that had been pulled or ended up covering his head,” Senior Constable McLeod told the court.<\/p>\n
“Additionally there were, I’d describe them as, etchings in the deceased’s body.”<\/p>\n
Footage from his body camera, played to the jury, showed three large stars etched into the deceased’s skin.<\/p>\n
The court previously heard Mr Hunter was genitally mutilated, missing his penis, testicles and scrotum.<\/p>\n
Senior Constable McLeod noted multiple other injuries, including at least two long cuts leading from Mr Hunter’s thighs down to his shins.<\/p>\n
The court heard a box cutter was found tangled in the curtain covering Mr Hunter’s body.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the trial, barrister Nadia Kaddeche for the Crown told the court DNA findings provided “extremely strong support” for Ms Hill being a contributor to DNA samples on Mr Hunter’s hands and arms, and moderate support that she contributed to DNA found on the box cutter.<\/p>\n
‘The biggest rush ever’<\/p>\n
During opening arguments on Tuesday, prosecutors alleged Ms Hill bragged about killing Mr Hunter to an undercover police officer in the holding cell after her arrest.<\/p>\n
The prosecution said the jury would hear evidence Ms Hill allegedly made several admissions about her involvement in Mr Hunter’s death.<\/p>\n
“I did it,” Ms Hill allegedly told the undercover police officer.<\/p>\n
“I just went along with it,” she allegedly said.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s new to me, mate. It\u2019s my first one,” Ms Kaddeche told the court Ms Hill had said.<\/p>\n
The court heard Ms Hill told the undercover police officer she gashed Mr Hunter’s eyes out with secateurs, and was involved in striking him in the head.<\/p>\n
She told the undercover police officer she threw the secateurs in the Dimboola River, the court heard.<\/p>\n
The court heard Ms Hill said she did it “just for fun”.<\/p>\n
“The experience was the biggest rush ever,” Ms Hill allegedly told the undercover police officer.<\/p>\n
“This fulfilled one of my fantasies.”<\/p>\n
Ms Hill consistently denied having amputated Mr Hunter’s genitals, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Defence barrister Tim Marsh\u00a0told the jury Ms Hill lied to the undercover police officer about a range of things while in the holding cell, including her involvement with a motorcycle gang.<\/p>\n
The court heard a “read in” statement Mr Hunter’s sister Heather Featherston made to police.<\/p>\n
In the statement, the court heard Mr Hunter had been released from prison less than a year before he was allegedly murdered.<\/p>\n
“I can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt John,” Ms Featherston said in her statement.<\/p>\n
Ms Featherston said in her statement Mr Hunter’s lung disease, and his breathing apparatus, rendered her brother “pretty much housebound”.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Victorian court has heard graphic details about the condition in which a man’s body was found at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1108,48,1300,46891,43,169146,2968,44,1049,41,39,42,40,660],"class_list":{"0":"post-294563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-court","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-death","11":"tag-dimboola","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-jodie-hill","14":"tag-murder","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-supreme-court","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-victoria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}