A BENDIGO man who admitted killing a man at Swan Hill last September will defend a charge of murder, a committal hearing in the Mildura Magistrates’ Court was told yesterday.
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Darren Williams, 38, formally entered a plea of not guilty to one count of murder and was ordered to re-appear for a directions hearing in the Supreme Court in Melbourne next month.
Williams also yesterday pleaded guilty to the theft of a car, which was later located at Dareton, NSW, about 25km from Mildura.
The dead man, believed to have been in his 60s, was found at a property in Harrison Crescent, Swan Hill. The committal hearing was this week told that considerable force was used to inflict a “large number” of injuries on the deceased man including a depressed fracture of the skull.
A forensic specialist who examined the man’s body listed 56 paragraphs in a report of injuries, which he said were similar in appearance.
A witness, who said he had known the accused for most of his life, told the court that he didn’t know whether to believe Williams when he told him that he had grabbed a knife and stabbed the deceased “a few times” after he awoke when the victim was “interfering” with him.
The court was told the victim was a known homosexual and the accused had threatened to “do the old fella over”. The court was told the accused was secretly tape recorded telling police his version of the incident.
Investigators said Williams was arrested while in a toilet with his “pants around his ankles”.
Through his defence counsel, Williams said that while he knew he had killed a man he would deny that that amounted to murder.
