Court hears of 'clever, calculated' killing

A Dunedin psychiatrist murdered his wife because he believed it was better for his finances and reputation than dumping her for his mistress, the Crown told the High Court at Christchurch yesterday.

South African-born Colin Bouwer, aged 51, the head of psychiatric medicine for Healthcare Otago, allegedly told a group of Otago medical students in 1999 that "the way to kill someone" was to fake a hypoglycaemic attack by injecting them with insulin, said prosecutor Robin Bates.

Later that year, soon after starting an affair with another Dunedin psychiatrist, Bouwer began administering a "clever cocktail of drugs," including insulin, to his wife, Annette, to replicate the hypoglycaemic symptoms of a rare pancreatic tumour, said Mr Bates.

The Crown said Bouwer could not poison his wife overnight because too many questions would have been asked.

"So it was a careful and calculated plan to administer drugs over a period of weeks, which created the exact symptoms a tumour would have created."

After she had suffered two months of ill health, including two hypoglycaemic comas and exploratory surgery that showed no pancreatic tumour, Bouwer allegedly spent January 3 and 4 last year giving his wife the cocktail of blood-sugar altering drugs.

The Crown said he left her in a hypoglycaemic state for hours until she died in the early hours of January 5. He then called in a colleague, Andrew Bowers, to inspect the body and sign the death certificate.

"Dr Bowers almost - almost - certified death as being caused by undetected insulinoma [tumour in the pancreas]. But he didn't," Mr Bates said.

"Had he done so at that point, it's very likely we wouldn't be sitting here today.

"Bowers just drew back a little bit and decided that this isn't something he should do at this stage and maybe there should be more investigation."

His caution and the suspicions of a pathologist led to a post-mortem that revealed no tumour.

A blood test in the early stages of Mrs Bouwer's illness showed no sign of the drugs. But after her death, a more sensitive test of a later sample revealed significant amounts of two blood-sugar altering drugs and sedatives, prompting the police to launch a homicide inquiry.

Mr Bates said police found "more than enough reasons for Bouwer to cause his wife's death", including:

* Between September 1999 and her death, Bouwer had written out 11 false prescriptions, most of which were for the cocktail of drugs found in her blood.

The first, for blood-sugar altering drugs, was four days before Mrs Bouwer's first hypoglycaemic coma. The one the day before her death had been for insulin.

* Bouwer spoke to colleagues about his "unsatisfactory" marriage, had a protracted affair with a nurse in Invercargill and had begun an affair with a fellow psychiatrist a few weeks before Mrs Bouwer became ill.

* Dumping his wife for a work colleague "wouldn't have gone down well with friends, colleagues, and family" and Bouwer had suggested to others that his wife "had something over me" that would make it difficult for him to leave her.

* Bouwer had few assets but stood to gain $262,000 from insurance if his wife died.

* Bouwer discussed with the National Poisons Centre the issue of testing for blood-sugar altering drugs before Mrs Bouwer died.

* Intercepted e-mail and telephone conversations between Bouwer and his fellow psychiatrist lover included "expressions of love" and "elaborate scheming" about obtaining a backdated psychiatric report detailing his depression, cancer and suicidal thoughts at the time of Mrs Bouwer's death; and about using a thank-you note from Mrs Bouwer as a suicide note.

* Bouwer obtained a letterhead from a South African doctor that he used to forge a diagnosis of cancer to bolster his claim of depression.

David More, defending, said the two issues in the trial were whether the drugs were administered to Mrs Bouwer and, if so, whether it was her or the defendant who had done so.

The trial continues today.

- NZPA