Woodchipper murderer seeks claim of victim’s money
Laine Clark |
The orchestrator of a horror woodchipper murder plot has launched a bid to claim some of her victim’s money.
Sharon Graham is serving a life sentence after being found guilty of murder following her grisly plan to kill her ex-partner Bruce Saunders for insurance money.
But she has appealed the conviction and applied for a share of his estate, years after Mr Saunders was fed into an industrial woodchipper on a Sunshine Coast property.
All that was left of his body were the legs.
A Supreme Court preliminary decision revealed Graham had made a claim saying she was entitled to some of Mr Saunders’ money “as a result of contributions she made”.
Mr Saunders, 53, left his entire estate to Graham in his last will made in October 2017.
Weeks later the popular butcher was hit on the head with an iron bar and fed into a woodchipper as he cleared vegetation on a friend’s rural property in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
Mr Saunders’ estate includes $34,441 after the 2018 sale of his Nambour home, with the majority of proceeds paying off his loan.
Graham’s murder conviction ensured she was not eligible to administer his estate.
However, she can seek a share if her conviction appeal is successful.
The preliminary decision handed down by Justice Peter Davis on Tuesday mentioned Graham’s claim for a share of the estate, which is being administered by the public trustee.
“She has appealed against her conviction, but the appeal has not been heard,” it said.
“Ms Graham asserts that she held an equitable interest in the (Mr Saunders) property as a result of contributions she made.”
At Graham’s 2023 trial the jury heard she planned to murder Mr Saunders and make it look like he fell into a woodchipper by accident, asking her then-partner Greg Roser and Peter Koenig to carry it out.
Koenig told the jury he saw Roser hit Mr Saunders multiple times on the head with the iron bar before helping carry the lifeless body to the woodchipper.
Koenig said he placed Mr Saunders on the chipper tray and used a stick to push him in.
The police’s suspicions were raised by bloodstains found on the woodchipper’s feeding tray that were inconsistent with claims Mr Saunders had died by falling into the machine.
Graham received a life sentence as did Roser, who was found guilty of murder in 2022.
Roser has also appealed the verdict.
Koenig received a lesser sentence for being an accessory to murder after an undertaking he testify in Roser and Graham’s trials.
“There are no words for the likes of you … by my observation you have displayed all the hallmarks of deep-seated psychopathy,” Justice Martin Burns told Graham at her sentencing.
AAP
