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A disgruntled wife upset about her husband moving a younger woman into their home baked him drug-laced biscuits, wrapped him in a blanket and stuffed him inside the freezer.
Rebecca Payne has admitted she killed Noel Payne by drugging him with temazepam and then hiding his body in a freezer at the back of their home in Walpeup, near the South Australian border, in September 2020.
However, she denies she committed murder as she claims she did not intentionally kill her 68-year-old husband.
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Ms Payne pleaded guilty to manslaughter and 12 jurors were empanelled on Tuesday for her murder trial in Mildura.
The couple married in 2006 and had two sons, but they shared a tumultuous relationship in the years before Mr Payne's death, prosecutor David Glynn said.
Ms Payne worked as a carer for her husband, who received a disability pension.
Glynn said there was evidence Mr Payne was a violent and controlling man. The pair separated twice, once in 2008 and and again in 2012, with Payne losing custody of their two sons on both occasions.
During the second separation, Mr Payne moved a younger woman, named Minnie, into the family home and began a sexual relationship with her.
When Ms Payne moved back in, Minnie remained at the house and he pursued a sexual relationship with both women.
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Glynn said Ms Payne was unhappy about her husband's behaviour in the years leading up to the murder, including the situation with Minnie and how he treated his stepson.
"She wanted to be free of him," he told the jury.
Ms Payne was prescribed temazepam to help her sleep and Glynn said on September 1 she crushed up several pills and put them in the icing of two biscuits.
He alleged she served the biscuits to her husband with a hot drink, which may also have been laced with drugs.
"She wrapped him in a blanket, tied the ends with duct tape and put him into a chest freezer they had in their backyard," Glynn said.
"She closed the lid of the freezer, tied down the lid with two straps and she left him.
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"At the end of that process he was dead and his body was discovered still in that freezer some three days later."
After she killed her husband, he alleged Ms Payne, two of her sons, and Minnie drove to Mildura for a shopping spree with Mr Payne's credit card.
They purchased pets for the kids, including a fish, bird and lizard.
She allegedly told friends he had taken his laptop, clothes, $10,000 cash and left Ms Payne and Minnie for another woman. When police inquired about his whereabouts, she moved the freezer to a neighbour's house.
The neighbour's son opened the freezer, found his body and called police.
Ms Payne's barrister Richard Edney said she accepted responsibility for the death, but did not mean to kill him.
"What is in serious issue here is whether or not Rebecca Payne had an intention to kill Noel Payne," he said.
The Supreme Court trial continues.
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Source: 9News
