Court told murder-accused mum Maree Crabtree allegedly told friends of son Jonathan to ‘give up’ on him
Friends of a man allegedly killed by his mother told the court that he felt lonely and was banned from seeing them.
A Gold Coast mother of three accused of killing her son with a poisoned drink heard from her son’s friends and former neighbors on the fourth day of her trial in the Supreme Court in Brisbane.
Maree Mavis Crabtree is charged with murder, attempted murder and attempted fraud for allegedly using fruit juice laced with a lethal dose of oxycodone to kill her 26-year-old son Jonathan and trying to collect his pension.
On Friday the court heard Jonathan’s friends and former partner claimed Jonathan became severely depressed and suicidal following the death of his sister Erin in 2012.
They said Jonathan was a “cheerful” and “happy” person before his sister’s death, but his depression peaked when he crashed his car in 2015.
The accident caused a severe brain injury and caused him to take prescription pain medication.
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Jonathan’s football friend Christopher Tattersall said Jonathan was struggling seriously following the death of his sister.
“He was hurt, she was his everything; this is his little sister,” Mr Tattersall said.
At the hospital following the car crash, Mr Tattersall said Maree had expressed fear of bringing him home.
“Maree said… ‘I can’t keep her in the house because she’ll turn into a vegetable,'” Mr Tattersall recalled.
He added that Jonathan expressed plans to build a better life in the year after his accident; He claimed Jonathan told him Maree was trying to kick him out of the house and was looking for an apartment of her own.
Mr Tattersall told the court Maree begged him to “give up” on Jonathan.
“Don’t bother, he’s not the same anymore, you’ve got to move on,” he recalled saying.
He told the court Maree told him she believed it was “suicide or a heart attack” that killed Jonathan.
Crabtree’s former neighbors told the court that in the years before Jonathan’s death, Maree had joked about having excessive amounts of opioid medication in the house.
A neighbor recalled him saying: “If you want morphine you can help yourself because (Maree) had a lot of morphine stored in the house.”
Another friend of Jonathan’s, Grace Trueman, told the court he once said his favorite drugs were oxycodone and Endone, a brand name of the oxycodone medication.
He also stated that Jonathan was in extreme pain after the accident and that they would often have to stop walking because his legs were too sore to continue.
Ms Trueman said she was able to talk to Jonathan while he was changing after the accident.
The court was previously told Maree told police Jonathan had the capacity for a child aged six to eight.
Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend, Katelyn Lofts, recalled that her ex-partner was abusive towards her while taking prescription medication and threatened to kill her when she tried to end the relationship.
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“He was really nice in the beginning, really sincere… really kind, very sweet,” Ms. Lofts said.
“When he started taking painkillers…that’s when his personality changed.
Ms. Loft recalled the day Jonathan was involved in a chemist robbery where he was said to have stolen prescription painkillers.
“I had a feeling something wasn’t right and that’s when I said no (to coming for a ride) and stayed at home,” he said.
She told the court she once saw Jonathan inject his sister Tara with the drug oxycodone and also noticed marks on her arms.
Under cross-examination, he acknowledged that she had previously claimed she was “afraid to ask him” about his drug use “in case he turned violent”.
Miss Lofts told the court about the incident on the day their relationship finally ended, when Jonathan crashed her car.
“He said he wanted to take his life to be with Erin,” she told the court, referring to Jonathan’s sister Erin, who died in 2012.
Despite threatening to harm himself, Ms Lofts said Jonathan’s mental state had improved since the accident.
In a video call about two months before his death, Ms. Lofts said Jonathan was upset but appeared to be in lighter spirits than on the day of the car crash.
“He looked really good after the accident, he didn’t look like he was in his right mind but he looked like himself,” he told the court.
“We were talking about rehab and how walking is good.
“He really wished he could go see his friends and said Maree wouldn’t let him.”
The trial continues.
