Tostee waits for jury
Did Gable Tostee torment and murder his frightened, petite Tinder date Warriena Wright?
Or was he acting in self-defence when he locked the 26-year-old New Zealander on his balcony after she had pelted him with rocks and threatened to ‘‘destroy his jaw’’.
That’s what a 12-member jury will have to decide tomorrow when it begins considering its verdict.
Jurors have heard from witnesses to the fatal plunge, and from detectives, but the man who was there that night declined to give evidence in his own defence. The most compelling piece of evidence – one both sides claim proves their case – was a threehour audio tape capturing Wright and Tostee’s turbulent, and ultimately fatal three-hour rendezvous, which ended with Wright falling 14 floors from Tostee’s Gold Coast apartment.
Prosecutor Glen Cash, in his closing address, said Tostee had ‘‘caused her death as much as if he pushed her from the balcony himself’’.
He argued Tostee used more force than reasonably necessary to restrain Wright, and taunted her as he used his body weight to keep her pinned on the ground.
The ‘‘tall and muscular’’ Tostee dominated ‘‘slight and petite’’ Wright, Cash claimed, and intimidated her by saying: ‘‘You’re lucky I haven’t chucked you off my balcony, you goddamn psycho bitch’’.
Cash claimed Tostee had cut off her only means of escape by locking her out on the balcony, and ignored her pleas to let her go because she’d ‘‘been a bad girl’’.
Wright had been so terrified that the only chance she had to escape was to climb down to seek refuge in the apartment below. Tostee used unnecessary force to restrict her breathing, possibly with a chokehold, when she allegedly hit him in the head with a metal clamp.
Tostee’s lawyer, Saul Holt QC, said Wright was ‘‘massively drunk’’ and ‘‘out of control’’.
Tostee managed the ‘‘craziness’’ of a person he’d only just met with patience and in a gentlemanly manner.
‘‘You don’t get convicted of murder or manslaughter for saying stupid things or for being angry,’’ Holt argued.
Tostee had been lawfully permitted to restrain her because she attacked him with rocks in his own home.
Holt said Wright hit Tostee in the head with metal clamp, and he tried to de-escalate the situation by shutting and locking the balcony door, creating safe space for both of them.
It could not have been foreseeable that Wright would climb over the balcony seconds later in darkness to ‘‘certain death’’.
And Tostee’s actions afterwards, including calling a lawyer and buying pizza, did not indicate guilt.