{"id":651427,"date":"2026-05-05T16:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/651427\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T16:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:16:15","slug":"own-demons-killed-man-not-mums-smoothie-jury-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/651427\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Own demons’ killed man, not mum’s smoothie, jury told"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman accused of murdering her son with a drug-laced smoothie was being blamed for his overdose or a revenge plot by her daughter, a jury has been told.<\/p>\n

The Brisbane Supreme Court jury on Tuesday heard the closing statements following the 19-day murder trial of Maree Mavis Crabtree.<\/p>\n

The 59-year-old is accused of killing her 26-year-old son Jonathan with an overdose of painkillers on July 19, 2017 in the family’s home north of the Gold Coast before making a $125,000 insurance claim.<\/p>\n

\"MareeMaree Mavis Crabtree. (AAP Image\/Jason OBrien)<\/p>\n

She has also been accused of attempting to murder her son in January that year.<\/p>\n

There were three other possibilities for Jonathan’s death other than Crabtree being a murderer, defence barrister Angus Edwards told the jury.<\/p>\n

“He died of a drug overdose. We know that. He was a drug addict. Was it a suicide or accidental overdose?” Edwards said.<\/p>\n

Jonathan had tried to take his own life multiple times and with multiple methods for years, the jury heard.<\/p>\n

His mental health had deteriorated after he acquired a traumatic brain injury in a car crash and started acting violently to his mother and sister.<\/p>\n

“Jonathan had a lot of demons. If he was a good person, he wasn’t any more,” Edwards said.<\/p>\n

The jury heard Crabtree’s adult daughter Tara claim she watched the hallway and kitchen where her mother crushed up prescription painkillers and anti-anxiety tablets while Jonathan was passed out in bed.<\/p>\n

\"JonathanJonathan Crabtree (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Tara’s testimony should be accepted despite her diminished intellectual capacity and the defence’s repeatedly suggesting she was a liar, crown prosecutor Caroline Marco told the jury.<\/p>\n

“There is a lot of other evidence … which when combined with what Tara says she saw her mother do, we say shows Tara’s evidence to be honest and reliable and the defendant is guilty,” Marco said.<\/p>\n

Crabtree had wanted to kill her son because she feared losing the family home in a lawsuit brought by a woman who was affected by Jonathan’s robbery of a pharmacy, Marco said.<\/p>\n

Jonathan was also a violent drug addict with a traumatic brain injury who could not be evicted as he partly owned the house.<\/p>\n

Tara was the only person saying her mother killed Jonathan and she had the most to gain from her murder conviction<\/p>\n

“Did Tara kill Jonathan? He had been violent towards her with a brick in hand,” Edwards said.<\/p>\n

“Did he kill two birds with one stone? She now gets the house to herself.”<\/p>\n

\"TaraTara Crabtree. (AAP Image\/Rex Martinich)<\/p>\n

Crabtree had told a neighbour, “I wish Jonathan had died in the car accident. I wish he was dead,” the jury heard.<\/p>\n

Edwards said Crabtree’s statements had been “taken out of context”.<\/p>\n

Crabtree had been stockpiling Tara’s oxycodone medication and Jonathan was found in his room dead with no signs of the painkiller around his body, the jury heard.<\/p>\n

Tara, who was one year younger than Jonathan at the time he died, had also been living in the family home with Crabtree.<\/p>\n

Tara’s affairs were managed by her mother to the extent she did not know she had her own bank account, Marco told the jury.<\/p>\n

“Tara did what her mother asked her to do because they had a very unhealthy relationship, where she controlled Tara,” the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n

“She likened it to a relationship of domestic abuse or control.”<\/p>\n

Crabtree had told Tara not to help Jonathan if she heard him struggling after drinking the drug-laced smoothie and after he died she should tell police it was a suicide, Marco said.<\/p>\n

Tara had waited two-and-a-half years to change her story because she was angry at police for keeping her confined in hospital for seven months, the jury heard.<\/p>\n

Tara has been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.<\/p>\n

Edwards is due to continue his closing statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman accused of murdering her son with a drug-laced smoothie was being blamed for his overdose or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-651427","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\/651427","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=651427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}