{"id":533082,"date":"2026-03-11T10:40:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T10:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/533082\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T10:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T10:40:11","slug":"man-to-face-trial-for-his-wife-melinda-freemans-decades-old-murder-at-whittlesea-in-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/533082\/","title":{"rendered":"Man to face trial for his wife Melinda Freeman’s decades-old murder at Whittlesea in Victoria"},"content":{"rendered":"

The husband of a woman found dead in a ransacked home three decades ago will face trial accused of her murder.<\/p>\n

Craig Freeman, 63, was charged in 2025 with his wife Melinda Freeman’s murder 34 years ago.<\/p>\n

Police say the 27-year-old woman was found dead in a ransacked Whittlesea home<\/a>, in Melbourne<\/a>‘s outer north, on October 4, 1991, after she was assaulted.\"MelindaMelinda Freeman was found dead in a Whittlesea home. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Freeman claimed he found his wife’s body lying on the top landing of their two-storey home after returning to the property with their son and finding the front door open.<\/p>\n

He was granted bail in December on a $500,000 surety, put up by his current wife, after the prosecution did not oppose his application.<\/p>\n

Justice Michael Croucher found Freeman had demonstrated exceptional circumstances to permit his release on bail, including that the prosecution’s case was circumstantial and an issue at trial would be the alleged killer’s identity.<\/p>\n

Freeman faced Melbourne Magistrates Court<\/a> today, where his lawyer Paul Galbally said his client had elected to send the matter to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The accused killer stood as he pleaded not guilty to one count of murder.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Stephen Ballek ordered Freeman face the Supreme Court<\/a> for a directions hearing on March 26.Freeman was placed on trial bail with conditions including he not leave Victoria<\/a>, report to police<\/a> twice a week, and not contact any prosecution witnesses.<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The husband of a woman found dead in a ransacked home three decades ago will face trial accused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-533082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533082","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=533082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}