Husband’s ‘fake’ letter to coroner revealed as Sharon Fulton murder trial begins
Prosecutors allege money and a bitter separation led a jilted husband 40 years ago to murder his wife and the mother of his children, as the trial of the suspected murder of Sharon Fulton begins in the WA District Court this week.
Raymond Reddington, formerly known as Robert Fulton and Maxwell Fulton, was accused of murdering his 39-year-old wife in 1986; cold case detectives later reopened the case into her disappearance following a Coroner’s Court ruling that she was likely involved in foul play.
The 79-year-old showed no emotion Wednesday as prosecutor Ben Stanwix laid out his case to the jury alleging Reddington killed Fulton at their Duncraig home after discovering he would receive the lion’s share of their assets, home and children in the pending divorce settlement.
Stanwix told the jury a series of lies told by Reddington would be proven by the state during the three-week trial, including a letter sent to WA Coroner Sarah Linton in 2021 ahead of Fulton’s criminal inquest.
The letter, which allegedly contained DNA matching Reddington’s DNA, purportedly belonged to the husband of a friend of Fulton’s and claimed that he “got her pregnant, killed her, and then hid her under a concrete porch.”
Stanwix told the jury it was a complete fabrication and an attempt by Reddington to take the anger out on himself, like Reddington’s attempts to fake having dementia during a 2017 police interview.
The prosecutor alleged Reddington had consulted a lawyer in the months before Fulton’s disappearance and learned she had filed for divorce before being informed that she would be given custody of their four-bedroom Duncraig home, Queensland investment property, spousal support payments and four children as part of the agreement.
Stanwix told the jury that Reddington “most likely” attacked Fulton at their home on March 18, 1986, and “either that day or in the following days disposed of her body in such a way that it was never found.”
Stanwix said he reported her missing three days later and gave police several different statements about her last known movements.
Fulton’s body has never been found and her disappearance has been the subject of two police inquests, one in 2007 and another in 2017, as well as a coroner’s inquest in 2022.
Despite extensive investigations by police and family and extensive media coverage, no information has been received regarding his whereabouts since his disappearance.
At the time of Fulton’s death, her children were ages 15, 10, seven and three.
Stanwix said his testimony to the jury would include witnesses involved in the capture of serial killers David and Catherine Birnie and Terrence Fisher, who died in 2000 but was a person of interest in several murders of women that occurred around the time Fulton disappeared.
One of the officers who will testify at Reddington’s trial was the same person who interviewed notorious child murderer David Birnie and was in the room when he confessed.
Reddington denies the allegations and his attorney will present the defense’s case Wednesday afternoon.
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