The wife of murder-accused Ewen Macdonald has given evidence about the night her husband vandalised Scott Guy’s house then denied it for two-and-a-half years.
Macdonald is accused of killing Mr Guy, Anna’s brother, in July 2010. He denies the murder charge but admits burning down an old farm house on Mr Guy’s property and vandalising the Guy’s new house.
He admitted to the arson and vandalism at the time of his arrest in 2011, but for the two-and-a-half years previous, kept it from his wife.
Anna told the court she never suspected her husband was responsible for the vandalism, believing he was on a “boys’ weekend trip” in Northland at the time.
She says on the night of the vandalism, Macdonald had told her he was heading up north to go fishing and transport a trailer load of gear.
But later that night she recalled something which caught her attention, either a noise or lights, and saw two figures in the farm shed.
“I thought that looks a bit strange, so I thought I would go outside and have a closer look. So I crept down the footpath…and went up to our fence,” she says.
“I thought it had to be Ewen getting something, I wasn’t sure so I yelled out ‘What are you doing?’ and then they were like ‘What are you doing?’.
“They said they had come back because the trailer had broken down or something had fallen off.
“It was pretty cold so I went back inside…I was like ‘oh well, I’ll just leave them to it’. I was reassured when I saw them that it was them, and it was all fine and I just left them to it.”
Anna says upon hearing about the damage the next day she rang her husband, who was up north by then.
“I was pretty nervous so I rang him and said ‘Can you come home? I think you should come home’…He sounded genuinely shocked and said ‘Oh my gosh, ok, yup, I’m coming home, I’m coming home straight away’.
“I was very nervous and freaked out that someone was going to come to our house and do something to us. I was pretty freaked out,” she told the court, as she started to weep.
Macdonald reassured her that she was safe, and told her not to worry because there were heaps of people around.
Watch the video for Anna’s testimony.
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