LIAR, FRAUD, KILLER

Tears, shock as Hutchinson found guilty of manslaughter

Townsville security guard Michael Hutchinson was yesterday convicted of killing his wife Julie ( right) but her shattered family is devastated a jury decided it was not murder. Hutchinson ( above) went to extraordinary lengths to cover up his crime, using Julie’s phone and email to pretend she was alive weeks after he killed her. Hutchinson is today behind bars awaiting his sentencing next week.

A JURY has found Michael Geoffrey Hutchinson guilty of the manslaughter of his wife Julie Hutchinson in 2015.

But it wasn’t the verdict of murder that Julie’s family had been hoping for.

Gasps came from the public gallery and Julie’s sister Christine Teitzel burst into tears as the verdict was announced at 3.35pm yesterday.

“We, the family of Julie Hutchinson, were unprepared and shocked by today’s verdict,” Ms Teitzel said outside court.

In a tribute to Julie provided to the Townsville Bulletin last night, her family said they missed her every day.

The family urged that “each and every one of us try not to dwell on the evil that took her away forever”.

“Not a day goes by that we aren’t thinking of our Jules,” the tribute read.

“The family has been absolutely devastated throughout this whole process and we would love nothing more than to be able to lay our beautiful Julie to rest with the love and respect that she deserves. Julie was a much loved member of our family, and there is a massive hole that can never be replaced in her absence.”

In court, Hutchinson remained composed and showed no emotion as the manslaughter verdict was handed down yesterday.

Last week Hutchinson pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Townsville to fraud, committed in 2014, but not guilty to murder.

During the eight- day trial, Crown prosecutor Michael Cowen QC called on 29 witnesses to testify.

The jury was told that Julie, a senior scientist, had not been seen since she failed to arrive at work at Queensland Nickel on March 9, 2015.

Julie’s body has never been found. Hutchinson, in a recording of a police interview played to the court, said that: “( I) honestly don’t know where she is and that’s the truth ... I can’t remember”.

He said in the recording that the last thing he remembered was “coming down Herveys Range”.

Father Geoffrey Hutchinson said that on April 11, 2015, police were at Hutchinson’s home investigating a missing person’s report.

He told the court it was then that his son told him Julie had died and he had taken her to Herveys Range.

“He virtually said that some people had come with Julie to his house, they made threats to him, there was an altercation,” he told the court.

“During that altercation Julie was knocked over and hit her head on the bench in the kitchen.”

Mr Cowen had argued that Hutchinson’s killing of Julie was premeditated.

He told the court that, in July 2014, Hutchinson took out a high- risk $ 86,000 loan — a second mortgage on his and Julie’s Condon home.

Hutchinson did not have Julie’s approval, and he allegedly asked friend Tara Worrall to pretend to be Julie in signing the documents in front of a local solicitor.

“By March of 2015, their mortgage was in arrears, all of that was gone, the defendant had $ 24,000 in debt on his credit card, he had hardly any money in his business account, the rates weren’t being paid, his own security guard licence fee had not been paid,” Mr Cowen said.

“By March of 2015 he was about to be, or had been, discovered in what he’d done.”

Mr Cowen said that after killing Julie, Hutchinson pretended to be Julie in emails and text messages to her boss, and asked Ms Worrall to pretend to be Julie on the phone to Ms Teitzel.

“( Hutchinson) set about leaving a devious trail of false text messages and emails, trying to pretend that Julie was still alive,” he said.

“( He) began texting between himself, using Julie’s phone and his own phone, and set up a web of lies … creating a series of text messages, conversations, pretending that Julie had become a lesbian, had spent $ 200,000 on drugs, was really sorry.”

Defence barrister Harvey Walters had told the jury that there was an “awful lot of truth” in what Michael Hutchinson told his father.

“It’s a quantum leap to say that someone who has no history of domestic violence or anything of that nature is going to kill his wife,” he said.

“You may well think that a far more compelling situation may be that, perhaps on the 8th, she picked up a letter and said, ‘ What the hell is this?’ and then an argument starts.”

In closing, Mr Cowen QC told the jury that what Hutchinson had told his father was “nonsense” and made “no sense whatsoever”.

Justice David North said