Death after argument
“I WAS angry enough to do it.”
These were the words of a man accused of murder spoken to police during an interview in the days after he killed an elderly woman in her frontyard.
Mark Daniel Ferguson is on trial for the murder of Pamela Frances Corless, who he struck on the back of the head with a 1.5m piece of timber after he confronted her about money.
In his opening statement, Crown prosecutor Nigel Rees said Ferguson admitted killing Ms Corless when he pleaded guilty to her manslaughter on Monday.
But Ferguson pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Corless and is defending that charge at trial.
On September 3, 2018, Ms Corless was found lying lifeless on her back by her sonin-law, three metres from her front door.
When Ferguson was questioned by police the next day, he said he was “angry enough” to hit Ms Corless because he was “sick and tired of getting ripped off”.
Day two of the trial against Ferguson commenced yesterday with his former girlfriend appearing in the witness box.
Louise Davies told the court she had been in a relationship with Ferguson for one year when she drove him to Ms Corless’s home on numerous occasions, including on the day Ferguson hit the 73-year-old causing her death.
Ms Davies said the couple had lived in Townsville for six months and Ferguson was doing casual work at the time, regularly picking up jobs from Facebook.
The court was shown a se
ries of Facebook messages sent between Ms Corless and Ferguson where he quoted her $650 to rebuild her wardrobe.
The messages showed Ms Corless gave Ferguson the go ahead to do the work and Ferguson subsequently bought the materials for the job.
In the recorded interview between Detective Sergeant Anthony Flanders and Ferguson that was played to the court yesterday, Ferguson said Ms Corless became unhappy with the job he was doing.
“She came upstairs and
started whingeing. She wasn’t happy with the materials and started telling me how to do everything.”
When Ms Corless asked Ferguson to leave he asked for the cash he had spent on the materials for the job.
“She flicked me $200,” Ferguson said in the interview, which did not cover the more than $400 he had spent on the materials.
Ferguson said he became angry the next day when he tried to ring Ms Corless about finishing the job but “she just kept ignoring me”.
He told police Ms Davies
drove him that afternoon to Ms Corless’s Cranbrook home to get the rest of the money he thought he was owed.
In her evidence, Ms Davies said she sat in the car while Ferguson jumped the fence to enter Ms Corless’s property.
She told the court she heard loud banging noises and got out and walked to the fence. Ms Davies said it was at that moment she heard a woman’s voice scream “get out of my house” before Ferguson jumped back over the fence and got into the car.
Ms Davies said when Fer
guson got back in the car he said, “baby just take me home”.
The court heard Ferguson told Ms Davies he “smashed a couple of windows” and “hit Pamela over the head with a piece of timber”.
An image was shown to the court of Ms Corless’s deceased body lying on its back in her front yard with a 1.5m piece of timber nearby.
The timber was forensically examined and was found to have Mr Ferguson’s DNA on it.
The trial today. will continue