Court told of horrific golf club killing

A COOMERA painter stabbed his wife up to 29 times with a broken golf club after she went ‘‘overboard’’ by saying she and the kids hated him, a court has been told.

The Supreme Court jury in Brisbane yesterday heard how deceased motherof-two Janelle Clark had 64 injuries to her body including stab wounds to her head, neck, chest and back as well as bruises all over.

Husband Peter Charles Clark, 49, has admitted to killing his wife but denies the murder charge and is on trial.

His interview with police taken on the night he was arrested in the family home on October 12, 2010 was played to the jury yesterday.

In it Clark described how an argument with his wife after work – as he sat on the lounge drinking a beer and she played on a computer – escalated to him smashing the laptop and throwing it across the room. He said his wife then said she was leaving and told their two children to pack.

‘‘I said, you’re going to leave me? I keep working and working and working and you just want to up and leave. They are my kids too,’’ he said in the interview. ‘‘She said, we hate you, we all hate you. I just went to the bedroom and got a golf club out.

‘‘I had it next to me. I thought she might have settled down and I would have put the club down.’’

Instead Clark said he felt as if his wife ‘‘challenged’’ him to use it.

‘‘I just feel she went overboard by saying me and the kids hate you,’’ he said.

‘‘I just picked it up and hit her over the top of the head with it.’’

Clark told police his bleeding wife wrestled the club from him and locked herself in the toilet so he went back to the bedroom and got another club which he used to batter down the door before ‘‘carrying on’’.

He said his wife then promised not to leave but he didn’t believe her.

‘‘I knew that was just a plea of (expletive),’’ he said. ‘‘I just really, really couldn’t cope any more with the pressure of what’s happening.’’

Clark said he hit his wife again with the club, then it broke, so he stabbed her with the metal shaft while she was on the floor. ‘‘I was in a rage of panic,’’ he said. The court was told that an autopsy showed Mrs Clark, 36, died from a variety of stab wounds.

The Crown closed its case yesterday and the trial continues today.