{"id":596317,"date":"2026-04-09T19:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/596317\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T19:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:41:09","slug":"jury-hears-maree-crabtree-on-trial-for-murder-of-son-jonathan-told-police-he-would-inject-whatever-he-can-get-his-hands-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/596317\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury hears Maree Crabtree, on trial for murder of son Jonathan, told police he would inject &#8216;whatever he can get his hands on&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A Gold Coast mother accused of fatally drugging her son for financial gain told police after his death he was a drug addict who would inject &#8220;anything he could get his hands on&#8221;, including Vegemite, a jury has heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Maree Mavis Crabtree is on trial in Brisbane, charged with the murder of Jonathan Crabtree in July 2017 and his earlier attempted murder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">She is also charged with attempted fraud in relation to a claim on the 26-year-old&#8217;s superannuation insurance policy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The 59-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">A Supreme Court jury has already heard the prosecution allege Ms Crabtree gave her son a blended drink laced with a lethal dose of the prescription pain medication Oxycodone at their Maudsland home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\"><a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-04-07\/maree-mavis-crabtree-pleads-not-guilty-son-murder\/106538780\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/106538780\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">During opening addresses,<\/a> the jury heard that in the years prior, Mr Crabtree had suffered injuries in a traffic crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Before his death, Mr Crabtree had himself abused prescription drugs and had previously been charged with robbing a chemist, the jury heard.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Headshot of Jonathan Crabtree with a friend who has been pixellated.\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775763669_184_8435c99e1941cf99f88f650cf1673741.jpeg\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Jonathan Crabtree was allegedly killed by his mother Maree Crabtree in July 2017. (Twitter: Maree Crabtree)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">On Thursday, the jury was played recordings of Ms Crabtree speaking with police who attended her home shortly after she discovered her son dead in his room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In the first interview, she said she was &#8220;shocked&#8221; by his death and spoke about him previously attempting to self-harm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;It&#8217;s just devastated me, I can&#8217;t believe it,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>If you or anyone you know needs help:<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">However, Ms Crabtree said she &#8220;did not see a suicide coming&#8221; this time, as usually it was obvious.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">She said her son would often appear &#8220;drugged out&#8221; and that was when she knew &#8220;something was going on&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;I would have picked it,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Instead, Ms Crabtree told the officers he seemed &#8220;peaceful&#8221; when she found him and speculated whether he may have had a heart attack instead of an overdose, because he was overweight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">At other points in the interview, she said Mr Crabtree may have been upset because a doctor had just told him he would likely need to be placed into care at a &#8220;geriatric&#8221; facility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">However, she also said her son had just told her he had &#8220;the best day I&#8217;ve had in years&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mother &#8216;horrified&#8217; by discovery in son&#8217;s room\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The jury has already heard that, following Mr Crabtree&#8217;s death, a large quantity of prescription drug packets, some empty and others containing some medication, had been found inside his room, including in a backpack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Oxycodone was not found inside his room, but it was found in other parts of the house, the jury has already heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In the interview, Ms Crabtree said she was &#8220;horrified&#8221; by the discovery in her son&#8217;s room and &#8220;mortified&#8221; by the quantity, and claimed she was not aware he had access to some of the medications.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-04-07\/maree-mavis-crabtree-pleads-not-guilty-son-murder\/106538780\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Woman pleads not guilty to murdering son with drug cocktail<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Maree Mavis Crabtree has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her son Jonathan in 2017, his attempted murder earlier that year, and attempted fraud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">However, she later said she knew her son was a drug addict, who would &#8220;inject anything&#8221;, including his sister&#8217;s pain medication and that he &#8220;would shoot up Vegemite&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Whatever he can get his hands on,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">She told the officers he would go from doctor to doctor and had &#8220;tricked&#8221; one into giving him prescription pain medication, and that multiple chemists had &#8220;banned him&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Ms Crabtree also told the officers her son previously bought illicit drugs from a &#8220;bikie&#8221;, including &#8220;black tarry stuff&#8221;, which she believed was methylamphetamine and said she had made reports about it to Crime Stoppers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">When asked about her son&#8217;s cognitive capacity, Ms Crabtree said separate reports after the accident placed him within an age range of six to eight years old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">She accepted it was &#8220;strange&#8221; that despite this, his drug addiction &#8220;never went&#8221; away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In another interview, which was played to the jury, Ms Crabtree told an officer her son would bury drugs and put them inside drains.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The jury was also played body worn camera footage, which showed police attending the family home before Mr Crabtree&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">In the vision, officers speak to him and Ms Crabtree about reports he had been posting on social media about selling drugs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">At one point, he told the officers, &#8220;I need all the pills I can get&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Various CCTV footage was also played to the jury, showing what is alleged to be Ms Crabtree and her daughter&#8217;s movements after Mr Crabtree had already died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The footage showed the pair leaving their home on foot, before returning, then leaving in a car.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">They were then depicted inside a bank and at two shops, before returning home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">The trial before Justice Martin Burns continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Gold Coast mother accused of fatally drugging her son for financial gain told police after his death&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38294,354,43,288710,288709,2968,44,701,1049,41,39,42,40,1109],"class_list":{"0":"post-596317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-attempted-murder","9":"tag-fraud","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-jonathan-crabtree","12":"tag-maree-crabtree","13":"tag-murder","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-queensland","16":"tag-supreme-court","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-trial"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596317","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=596317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}