Previous kill claim in chipper murder case

Laine Clark | October 15, 2022

It was while allegedly scoping out the best spot to murder Bruce Saunders that Gregory Lee Roser says Peter Koenig boasted of having killed before.

Koenig thought it was funny, according to Roser.

The pair were driving around the north of Brisbane at the time, he said, searching for secluded areas as part of the latest plan to dispose of Mr Saunders – a fishing trip murder.

“He said the best way to get rid of someone is to take them out fishing, knock them out, cut their feet, throw them over and let the sharks do the rest,” Roser told the Brisbane Supreme Court this week.

But each time Koenig identified a potential location, Roser says he made up an excuse to sabotage the plan.

The conversation took a further dark turn during the drive, the court heard.

A laughing Koenig said he had pushed a man into an Adelaide abattoir’s meat grinder, Roser said.

Months later, Mr Saunders was dead.

His body was found in a woodchipper after he went to clear trees with Koenig and Roser at a property north of Brisbane in November 2017.

Sharon Graham, 61, is accused of asking Roser and Koenig to kill her ex-partner and make it look like an accident.

Graham and Roser, 63, have pleaded not guilty to murder, with the former successfully applying for a separate trial.

Koenig pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder this year.

Crown prosecutor David Meredith told Roser’s murder trial it was laughable to consider the quiet, “monosyllabic” Koenig as a man with underworld links.

Roser said Graham told him Koenig had “a Mafia connection” and knew people who could “get rid of you”.

The two men had become embroiled in Graham’s various schemes to murder Mr Saunders for his $750,000 life insurance, Roser said.

Roser was first asked to murder Mr Saunders at the Nambour home he shared with Graham, the court heard.

Then Graham allegedly gave him Koenig’s handgun in a plan to ambush Mr Saunders near his workplace.

The ill-fated fishing trip was also discussed. Each time, Roser says he refused.

By mid-October 2017, Graham told both men about her new plot to kill Mr Saunders while clearing trees at a friend’s property, Roser said.

The idea was to make the death look like an accident.

“I said I am not f***ing doing it,” Roser said.

But pressure mounted during their final day at the property, when Koenig allegedly repeatedly told him he had to get rid of Mr Saunders and that “Sharon is depending on you”.

Graham sent abusive texts telling him to “hurry up and do the job”, the court heard.

Roser said he refused and kept working.

Next, he heard a couple of whip crack or gunshot sounds and saw Mr Saunders slumped on the machine.

“I said what the f***ing hell is going on here,” Roser said.

“He said ‘well, it is done now’.”

Wary of Koenig’s “dangerous criminal associates”, he complied when asked to help dispose of the body, the court heard.

Roser said Koenig fired up the chipper, hooked Mr Saunders’ arm around a branch and pushed it into the machine.

Mr Saunders’ clothes tore off as his body went through the grinding mechanism, before Koenig stopped the chipper with the legs sticking out.

“He said ‘oh that should be enough’,” Roser said, adding that Koenig took charge and ensured they got their story straight before police arrived.

Mr Meredith said Koenig talked very little and he was not the kind of “dynamic” person who would come up with a detailed plan of what to tell police.

“(Graham) has enlisted you because you were keen to be with her and you gave the impression you could actually … kill Bruce,” he said.

But Roser protested, telling the court: “I wanted to be with her, but I didn’t want to kill anyone.”

He said he was initially convinced Graham’s murderous plans would fizzle out, so he never approached police.

After Mr Saunders was killed, Graham and Koenig allegedly told Roser if he spoke to anyone about what happened they would “make life uncomfortable”.

Convinced they were having an affair, Roser also feared Graham and Koenig would point the finger at him.

Koenig was always around and had a strange intimacy with Graham, the court heard.

She would call Koenig “Boo Boo” and hand-feed him food, while at other times he saw them kissing and cuddling.

Yet Roser remained by Graham’s side after Mr Saunders’ death, even moving into the dead man’s room with her the night following the woodchipper incident.

“I was very lonely at that stage,” Roser said.

When asked if he was appalled by Mr Saunder’s woodchipper death, Roser told the court he was.

“Oh yeah … I was really cut up about (it).”

The trial before Justice Martin Burns reconvenes on Monday.