Slain man’s head cut off ‘to fit in car’, court toldAbe MaddisonAAPWed, 11 February 2026 2:45PM
Police surveillance devices recorded an accused killer recounting the gruesome dismemberment of his alleged victim, a jury has heard.
Sheree Glastonbury, 51, and Mark Murphy, 54, are standing trial in the South Australian Supreme Court for the murder of Geoffrey McLean, 55, in August 2022.
Glastonbury and Mr McLean had a “volatile” relationship and she had told people that she “hated him more than she hated anyone”, the court has been told.
Continuing her opening address on Wednesday, prosecutor Melissa Wilkinson said the case was built on circumstantial evidence that included movements of mobile phones, calls and messages, internet search histories, CCTV and police surveillance devices.
Phone records showed that on August 18, 2022, Murphy went to the Andrews Farm home of Glastonbury and Mr McLean “and Mr McLean didn’t leave the house alive again,” she said.
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In late February 2023, a surveillance device in Murphy’s Brahma Lodge home captured him speaking about what Glastonbury had told him.
Murphy lived at the home with his twin brother Peter James Murphy, 54, and Lynette Joy Sexton, 52, who are also on trial charged with assisting an offender.
“(Mark Murphy) explained that (Glastonbury) said she was going to give Mr McLean a sleeping tablet and make him sleep … then went on to say that she then gave him a shooter, and that, he said, was what overdosed him,” Ms Wilkinson said.
Mark Murphy was also recorded recounting how he dragged Mr McLean out to the carport, used a hacksaw to cut his arms and legs off, and had “trouble getting the torso in the car because he could not lift it on his own, so he cut his head off”.
In the surveillance recordings, Mark Murphy also spoke about staging an overdose by putting Mr McLean in a wheelchair and leaving him in a park.
“None of that happened, though, because rigor mortis had set in, the body was laying flat, and they could not sit him in the wheelchair,” Ms Wilkinson said.
On the night of the alleged murder, Mr McLean’s eBay account was used to buy men’s and women’s sneakers and golf equipment, totalling nearly $3000.
“It’s alleged that steps were being taken to make it look like … he was alive and well when on the prosecution case, he was at least already incapacitated,” Ms Wilkinson said.
Glastonbury reported Mr McLean missing to police on August 29, 10 days after she said he had left their home.
On August 19, Glastonbury and Mark Murphy “were still in the process of their cleanup, and the method and location for the disposal was still needed”.
Mark Murphy booked an AirBnB property at Cadell in the Riverland for two nights, which Ms Wilkinson said was an “ideal location” to dispose of a body.
On August 23, Glastonbury and Mark Murphy used a truck hired by Peter Murphy to drive to the property, Ms Wilkinson said.
But they missed the turn-off and were lost in the middle of the night, failing to find the remote cottage they were searching for.
On October 24, 2022, a contractor slashing grass on a vacant block at Salisbury South found a wheelie bin with an “overpowering” smell, its lid sealed with screws. Police found Mr McLean’s torso inside.
The bin’s serial number was traced to the property next door to the Murphy brothers’ Brahma Lodge home.
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