Defence lawyers for two men and a woman accused of brutally killing a man in his home south of Adelaide say the evidence of who committed the murder is not clear enough for anyone to be convicted.
Key points:
- Steven Hinrichsen was found dead in his Morphett Vale home in 2018
- Three people, including his wife, are on trial for his murder
- Lawyers for the accused have told the jury there is not enough evidence for anyone to be convicted
Steven Hinrichsen, a 63-year-old, wheelchair-bound grandfather, was found dead in his Nathan Court home in Morphett Vale in December 2018.
His wife, Tanya Hinrichsen, is on trial for murder together with her new partner Gavin Skinner and his friend Robert Thrupp.
Prosecutors allege he was killed because he stood in the way of his wife’s new relationship.
The jury had heard Ms Hinrichsen and Mr Skinner exchanged text messages discussing killing Mr Hinrichsen, including one from Mr Skinner saying: “I’m so ready to go on a hunting spree.”
“If it is to do him then I’ll give you my permission,” Ms Hinrichsen replied.
But Ms Hinrichsen’s barrister Grant Algie QC argued the texts were not evidence she was a party to a plot to kill her husband.
He described her replies as consistent with her way of placating her belligerent new boyfriend, “engaging in a mechanism of agreement” while “never intending to do it.”
He also suggested Ms Hinrichsen’s call to an insurance company to ask about her husband’s accidental death policy was “a non-event”, saying it was clear insurance would not be paid if the person insured was murdered.
Mr Algie said there was no evidence Tanya Hinrichsen was involved in the murder of her husband after she had removed clothes and other belongings from their shared home the night he was killed.
She had gone to sleep on a couch at Mr Thrupp’s home and found her husband’s body when she returned the next morning.
Mr Algie said the fact she had wanted to leave chocolate and soft drinks for her husband suggested she was unaware that he would later be murdered.
“[They] formulated their own plan and did it and it had nothing to do with Tanya Hinrichsen,” he told the court.
Court hears victim could have been attacked twice
Gavin Skinner’s lawyer, William Boucaut QC, argued Ms Hinrichsen could have committed the murder, saying forensic evidence suggested her husband could have been attacked twice.
“If Mr Hinrichsen had been attacked earlier, how do you know Mrs Hinrichsen didn’t simply roll up and finish off the job?”
The removal of Mr Hinrichsen’s wedding ring, Mr Boucaut said, could have been an act of spite.
“It has been taken off the deceased and chucked into the corner,” he said.
“Is that something that a man would do, that Skinner would have done, or is it something more highly personal than that, more consistent with the act of [an] angry wife who knows that her marriage is well and truly at an end?”
Chris Weir, representing the third defendant, Robert Thrupp, said there was no real evidence of animosity from his client towards the victim and no forensic evidence implicating him in the brutal murder.
He said the prosecution had overly relied on his client’s use of methamphetamine with Gavin Skinner in the hours before the killing to explain his alleged willingness to be involved.
“Mr Thrupp is said to have been a man so affected by methamphetamine that without motive, without reason, intent, anything to gain, sets out to not only assault Steven Hinrichsen but to kill him purely out of allegiance to Mr Skinner,” he told the court.
“Really, does human nature really work that way … with nothing to gain and everything to lose?”
The trial will conclude next week.