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A Queensland court has heard allegations that a "love quadrangle" was behind a man's grisly woodchipper death, with witnesses claiming the victim had told friends he was scared of his "domineering" lover.
Bruce Saunders, 54, died at a property north of Brisbane in November 2017, with his death initially beingtreated as accidental.
Now 63-year-old Gregory Roser and 61-year-old Sharon Graham face murder charges, with Graham accused of asking Roser and another man, Peter Koenig, to kill Saunders in a staged accident to claim his A$750,000 ($838,000) life insurance policy.
Sharon Beighton, the owner of that property, told Brisbane Supreme Court that she was shocked when she heard of the "terrible accident" that had allegedly taken place, AAP reported.
But events that day left her believing it "didn't make sense".
Beighton was first alerted to Saunders' gruesome death when she went outside her Gympie property to find Roser looking like he was vomiting and Koenig in an apparent state of shock.
Bruce Saunders.
Roser and 65-year-old Koenig has been working with Saunders to clear trees on the property.
"I remember ... thinking 'where's Bruce?'" Beighton told the court on Tuesday.
"Peter said 'there's been a terrible accident'. Greg said to me 'I tried to save him, I tried to pull him out ... he went through the chipper'."
Gympie Police acting inspector Paul Algie said at the time that it was "one of the worst incident scenes I've ever seen".
The pair's explanation began to unravel for Beighton when she learned that police had not been called because there was no cellphone reception.
She told jurors that the property had "great" reception and also said that Roser had told her he called Graham "down at the chipper" to alert her - and also tried to ring an ambulance for her after her blood pressure spiked.
After Roser and Koenig came back from giving police statements, Beighton quizzed them further on what happened.
She told the court that Roser had claimed Saunders had been an "absolute idiot on the day" and was "standing on the chipper, leaning back into it".
Police at the property in 2017.
Beighton said Roser also claimed Roser was "woozy" and bleeding from earlier being struck with a fallen branch.
This claim did not sit right with Beighton, AAP reported.
"I didn't see any blood on Bruce so to me it didn't make sense," she said.
"I think I was in shock [so] I didn't think to question a lot of things until later,"
The court heard that Saunders was in a "love quadrangle" with Roser, Koenig and Sharon Graham and that the trio had been planning the murder for months.
The murder trial also heard that Peter Koenig has already pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder earlier this year - and will give evidence against Roser and Graham.
Sharon Beighton's granddaughter Keira-Lee Beighton told the court that Graham talked about how much money Saunders had and that "he would die first and she would get everything".
Sharon Graham.
She said that Graham, who was in a relationship with Roser at the time of Saunders' death, had laughed about the deceased's "pathetic" attempts to win her back with pleading text messages, the ABC reported.
She also testified that Graham said: "It's not my fault that he loves me and wants to give me everything".
But former work colleagues said that Saunders was in debt and borrowed to fund Graham's lifestyle, fearing he would lose her if his true financial position was revealed.
Keren Armstrong said a tearful Saunders would call her to say Graham had hit him and another colleague, Christeena Grills, said Saunders had told her that Graham was "verbally abusive".
Grills told the court that Saunders had confessed to her that he was scared of Graham and that she was "domineering and controlling", adding that Graham had told Saunders that she had a former partner who "'knew people who knew how to make someone disappear".
Roser and Graham have pleaded not guilty to murder with Roser's lawyer saying that his client only helped Koenig dispose of Saunders' body in the chipper after the other man murdered him.
Graham's lawyer said his client denies any involvement and believed the death to be an accident.
