DAD OF CRABTREE KIDS ‘HEARTBROKEN’
Former partner describes life with woman accused of killing her children
THE father of Erin and Jonathan Crabtree said he is “heartbroken” by their deaths and tried to have his son placed in care before his death.
Mark Crabtree successfully applied for his son to be placed in adult care last year, but the decision was overturned when mother Maree Crabtree appealed the decision and won custody.
Ms Crabtree was this week charged with the murders of both Erin and Jonathan. She denies the charges.
IN THE early 2000s, a divorcee from a small country town posted a classified advertisement in Sydney’s big city newspaper looking for love.
Maree Crabtree, the Gold Coast woman now accused of murdering her two children, replied.
“I was divorced and I guess I got a bit lonely, so I put an ad in the Daily Telegraph section called Meeting Point and Maree answered the call,” said the man, who was in a relationship with Crabtree for the next five years.
Now aged in his 50s and living interstate, Crabtree’s former lover, who asked not to be named, gave the Gold Coast Bulletin a detailed insight into the half decade he spent with the murder accused in the NSW Hunter Valley, from about 2005.
Crabtree’s ex grew up at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Region, which is about 250km north of Sydney.
His family was well known in the area and had a large farm in the hills.
“I was born and bred in Muswellbrook and what happened was Maree came with the kids for the weekend of the Muswellbrook Show and we really hit it off,” he said.
“Within a week she’d come to live with me.
“We went to old time dances and she met a lot of new people.
“At the start she was brilliant – just great. Everything was hunky dory, as they say.”
But things didn’t stay hunky dory for long.
Crabtree, who was divorced herself, didn’t get on with her new man’s family and caused friction over money.
“She put a brick between me and my parents and my brothers and sisters,” he said.
“We later moved over to McCully’s Gap because we got a place out there and in the end things went pear-shaped, as they say.
“It was a hard road to get things back with my family.”
Mention Maree Crabtree’s name to anyone in the Muswellbrook area and they’ll talk about a dispute over money and the land owned by her expartner’s family up the hill.
“The land the family were on is worth a significant amount of money and it was really sad what happened there,” an old schoolmate of Jonathan Crabtree’s told the Bulletin.
“Maree really estranged him from his family.”
The schoolmate, who asked to remain anonymous, said she attended Muswellbrook South Public School with Jonathan for two years until he, his sister
Erin and a relative who lived with the family moved to an expensive private school about 20 minutes away.
“The rumour around was that she was just in it (the relationship) for the money,” she said.
“People said that’s how she could afford to send the kids to Scone Grammar (School).”
The friend said Crabtree and the kids blew into the small town and left just as suddenly, about five years later.
“I don’t know where they had come from. They just kinda turned up out of the blue, no one had ever heard of them,” she said.
“Then it was pretty sudden, they just kind of left.”
Locals remember Crabtree being overly affectionate with her new man when she first came to town.
It was something that wasn’t done in the small farming community.
“She presented very well and always wore the eyeshadow and lipstick,” a Muswellbrook local said.
“Put it this way: she rounded her words. She never said: ‘I’m goin’ there’.
“What I remember is they were always all over each other like a rash.
“You would be there trying to have a conversation and she would be there running her hands through his hair saying to everyone: ‘Isn’t he beautiful? Isn’t he gorgeous?’ And this was in a public place.”
Crabtree told her ex-partner she’d worked as a receptionist in a law firm before she moved from Sydney to be with him, he said.
“While the kids were under my care, they were all healthy.
“The only one who was crook was (the relative), she wasn’t eating properly and we had to take her to hospital.
SHE WANTED TO BE DOMINEERING, SHE WAS JUST THAT SORT OF PERSON. WITH MONEY, EVERYTHING.
MAREE CRABTREE’S EX PARTNER
“She was sick, you could see that.
“Jonathan was a bit of a handful but they were great kids.”
The ex-partner said the couple struck financial hardship after they moved into the property at McCully’s Gap but Crabtree, who was always “domineering”, made him leave his blue-collar job.
“We starting arguing about finances and she made me leave my job because we were in difficulty,” he said.
“She said it was my turn to pitch in and help out because we’d had to borrow money for the house.
“She wanted to be domineering, she was just that sort of person.
“With money, everything.
“I’d worked at my job for 28 years and I had bloody tears in my eyes when I resigned and walked out that gate.”
The property they lived on was some 62ha of idyllic NSW countryside.
It had views of a ridge and a small creek.
Neighbours remember the family being difficult to live alongside.
“They weren’t the best neighbours,” a woman who lived on the same street told the Bulletin.
“We wanted to set off balloons when they left, to put it nicely.
“They didn’t care what they did or if they offended you.”
Crabtree’s former partner said money woes were their eventual undoing.
“Everything didn’t go right,” he said.
“We were arguing about money and the house so I went and saw a real estate (and sold the property).
“We parted ways, I didn’t know where she went.
“She tried to add me on Facebook once but I didn’t want to open an old can of worms.”
On Wednesday, Maree Crabtree, 51, was arrested in Brisbane and charged over the murders of her children Jonathan Crabtree, 26, and Erin Crabtree, 18.
The murders allegedly occurred in Maudsland in 2012 and Upper Coomera in 2017.
The deaths, which were originally believed to be non-suspicious, were later described by Queensland Police as “premeditated, direct acts of murder”.
Crabtree has also been charged with the torture and grievous bodily harm of a 25year-old relative.
Police allege she dishonestly gained a benefit of more than $500,000 from her children’s deaths between 2012 and 2017.
She has further been charged with two counts of fraud and two counts of attempted fraud.
She is facing a separate charge of armed robbery that allegedly occurred at a Southport chemist in 2015.
Crabtree’s lawyer Emily Lewsy has said she will “vigorously defend the charges”.