Accused murderer Colin Bouwer's mistress not only provided a motive for him to kill his wife but also raised suspicion that Annette Bouwer's death was deliberate, the High Court in Christchurch was told yesterday.
Prosecutor Robin Bates said Bouwer, 51, was having an affair with Anne Walsh, a fellow Dunedin psychiatrist,
and that was one of the motives for his plan to poison his wife with drugs that mimicked a tumour.
Mr Bates also said that when suspicions about Mrs Bouwer's death began to emerge, Dr Walsh started a process of "elaborate scheming" with Bouwer about obtaining a backdated psychiatric report detailing his depression, cancer and suicidal thoughts.
The jury was told on Tuesday that Dr Walsh was at the Bouwers' home within an hour of the 111 call Bouwer made at 6.19 am on January 5 last year in which he claimed his wife had apparently died in her sleep.
In the witness box yesterday, Mrs Bouwer's specialist, Andrew Bowers, said Bouwer had called him that morning and asked him to certify the cause of death.
Dr Bowers said he considered the most likely cause of death was an insulin-producing tumour, but ordered an autopsy because Mrs Bouwer's death was "completely unexpected".
As he was leaving the Bouwers' home, he stopped to talk to Dr Walsh while Bouwer was out of the room.
Mr Bates said hearsay rules prevented Dr Bowers repeating what Dr Walsh told him. But he asked the witness whether Dr Walsh's comments caused him to discuss the matter with the coroner and pathologist Han-Seung Yoon.
Dr Bowers agreed, adding: "I discussed with Professor Yoon that we required to take some stomach samples for hypo-glycaemic [low blood-sugar level] drugs and to consider the possibility that Mrs Bouwer had been poisoned."
The autopsy suggested Mrs Bouwer might have been the victim of foul play, prompting a police investigation.
Dr Bowers said he learned later that the blood-sugar levels Mrs Bouwer recorded in the days before her death were "almost all abnormal".
Defence counsel David More suggested Mrs Bouwer's symptoms were due to a natural condition known as beta-cell hyperplasia, but Dr Bowers said this was "exceptionally unlikely".
The trial continues.
- NZPA
