Waiting here for the verdict. Here are some recent articles:
A NSW man accused of murdering his lover who went missing in 2012 denies manipulating her phone to make out she was alive.
7news.com.au
A NSW man accused of murdering his lover who went missing in 2012 denies manipulating her phone to make out she was alive.
A NSW horse farrier who denies murdering his lover has told a judge he was bemused at learning his rock solid alibi had disintegrated.
James "Jim" Scott Church said he didn't understand it when his friend revealed he had been away at the time he originally thought Church had come around for dinner.
But Church testified sometime after the revelation, he remembered he had gone to his friend's property but had sat outside in his car for hours unsuccessfully waiting for him to come home.
After being interviewed by police a number of times and then shown CCTV footage, Church admitted giving Ms Smith a lift at Tuggerah railway station on August 19, saying he then dropped her off at Wyong.
Under questioning from prosecutor Kate Ratcliffe, Church denied manipulating Ms Smith's phone after her disappearance to make out she was still alive.
He said he did not retrieve voicemails and texts, including from her worried father, before sending messages to deflect attention from himself.
He also denied using the phone to call his own landline, but agreed he had told police he had received unanswered calls from her after her disappearance.
Before Church told police he had been visiting his friend for dinner on August 19, his parents reported that they had been at their son's place that day.
Ms Ratcliffe referred Church to a covert tape recording when his mother told his sister: "Jim asked us 'could we say we were out there' and we did".
