A woman accused of murdering her ex-wife has been captured on prison phone call recordings with her male co-accused, with the pair allegedly discussing their need to “stick to the story” and to “pin it” on him, an Adelaide court has heard.
Anastasia Marshall, 29, was arrested last week, accused of killing mother of two Krystal Marshall and later, in October, setting alight a house that contained her body.
She is jointly charged with a 48-year-old man, who lived with the women at an Aldinga Beach property in Adelaide’s southern suburbs.
He was arrested shortly after the incident and his name and image remain suppressed.
Prison phone call transcripts between the pair before Ms Marshall was arrested can now be reported publicly, after a suppression order was revoked by Magistrate Kathryn White on Monday.
The court previously heard recordings allegedly captured Ms Marshall and her co-accused discussing the case on “numerous occasions”.
“There are recordings of the defendant and co-accused speaking where they discuss sticking to the plan, discuss pinning it on the co-accused and the co-accused telling [Anastasia Marshall] to say that she was scared of the co-accused in order to take the rap,” a prosecutor previously said.
At Ms Marshall’s last bail application hearing, her lawyer Nicholas Vadasz told the court her male co-accused allegedly made “full and frank submissions” to be solely responsible of the death of Krystall Marshall to police.
The male co-accused was not present at that hearing and his lawyer therefore was not able to comment on Mr Vadasz’s submissions.
In urging the magistrate to reject the bail applications, a prosecutor previously told the court the recordings led to “quite extreme concerns” regarding Ms Marshall’s potential to interfere with the police investigation.
“There have been conversations where it’s been discussed where certain witnesses live,” he told the court.
On Monday, Mr Vadasz attempted to keep the phone call recordings suppressed, saying it should be noted that the records showed the calls were from the co-accused to Ms Marshall.
“Not the other way around,” Mr Vadasz said.
“I note that she took her name off his telephone list at some stage, so she didn’t solicit those calls.”
The defence lawyer stressed that the prosecution’s allegations about Ms Marshall interfering with potential witnesses were entirely false.
“That is not contained in those [phone] conversations,” he told the court.
Ms Marshall wept, held her hands to her face and kept looking up to the ceiling while she appeared via video link.
“She was very distressed, you can see that,” Mr Vadasz told media outside of court.
A decision on whether she would be granted bail was adjourned until March 15.
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