Hours after beloved grandmother Phyllis Harrison was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death, Steven Leslie Hainsworth answered a knock at his door from detectives.
More than 26 years later, the Mildura man, 49, is on trial in the South Australian Supreme Court, accused of murdering his neighbour at Elizabeth South in March 1998.
Mrs Harrison, 71, was the first of three people allegedly killed by Hainsworth, who is the first accused serial killer to stand trial in SA since the 2003 convictions of John Bunting and Robert Wagner over the so-called “bodies in barrels” murders.
Hainsworth is also accused of murdering his aunt, Beverley Hanley, 64, at Elizabeth North in 2010 and Stephen Newton, 55, at Mt Gambier in 2011.
Director of Public Prosecutions Martin Hinton KC has told the court that Hainsworth knew each victim and lived near their homes, had a “physical connection” to each crime scene through DNA and/or property, admitted each crime to different people and was motivated to rob the victims by a need to fund his drug habit.
Justice Adam Kimber is now deliberating on his verdict after a marathon trial that ran from August to December.
As evidence in the trial unfolded, Hainsworth paid close attention from the dock, sometimes obscured from witnesses by a screen as they gave harrowing evidence, but he rarely displayed emotion.
In the public gallery, family members of the alleged victims have similarly watched closely, but at times there has been muffled sobbing, their grief undiminished by the passage of time.
Mrs Harrison’s body was found by her 11-year-old grandson, Luke Smoker, on March 3, 1998, when he arrived at her home with his mother.
“My brain was like ‘that’s a strange spot for Nanna to be sleeping’ ... then I saw the blood up near the head and I yelled out to mum something along the lines of ‘Mum, come have a look at this’,” Mr Smoker told the court.
Less than three hours later, detectives spoke to Hainsworth, then aged 23, who lived next door.
He admitted visiting Mrs Harrison’s home that morning and the previous night, trying to retrieve a tennis ball, but denied any knowledge of her death.
In a subsequent interview, he admitted to police that nine days after the murder, he made a call to Grandma’s Erotica Fantasy Phone Calls.
“Seems a strange one to phone up ... especially after what’s happened next door,” a detective commented to Hainsworth.
“Yeah, but you don’t really think about it, do you?” Hainsworth replied.
In written closing submissions released to AAP by Justice Kimber, the prosecution states: “In circumstances where no information was made public about the sexual aspect of the crime ... the prosecution contends that the accused’s response is consistent with his knowing what happened to Harrison - not just that she was stabbed and murdered, but that there was a sexual aspect to the crime.”
Hainsworth’s DNA profile was found on Mrs Harrison’s body, her clothing and on carpet near her body.
His lawyer, Andrew Fowler-Walker, submitted that the prosecution’s suggestion that an interest in grandmas was peculiar or aberrant should not be accepted “and would no doubt offend many elderly women”.
“There would be many people in the community of a different age bracket who would hold such an interest,” he wrote.
In his closing submission, he also stated that the integrity of the crime scene was compromised by "proven contamination" from witnesses and police officers, asserting that secondary transference of DNA could have happened as a result of his client patting Mrs Harrison’s dog when he was retrieving the tennis ball.
Twelve years after Mrs Harrison’s murder, on October 6, 2010, the body of Ms Hanley was found at the back door of her Elizabeth South home.
Leonard D’Agostino, 85, who lived in the property behind Ms Hanley’s home, told the court he was in his backyard when he heard Ms Hanley say: “What are you doing here? I saw you from the kitchen window jumping my fence. What do you want?”
He heard a muffled argument and then “either a whack a thud or a hit with something” ... it was “a terrifying thing to hear somebody getting whacked over the head with a baseball bat”.
Ms Hanley’s body was discovered later that day by her sister, Cheryl McGee, who told the court “there was a heap of blood and her head was all caved in".
Ms Hanley suffered blunt-force trauma injuries to her head. A cricket bat covered in blood was found near her body and there were bloodied footprints throughout the house.
The badly decomposed body of Mr Newton, a disability pensioner, was found in his Mount Gambier home by police on November 4, 2011, weeks after he was last seen alive.
Hainsworth’s former girlfriend, Sarah Evans, told the court she had gone to Mr Newton’s home to “get the door open” for Hainsworth, who had told her Mr Newton wouldn’t open the door to him.
She said Hainsworth repeatedly punched Mr Newton in the head before searching the home and “trashing the joint”.
“I told him that I thought Steve Newton was dead ... he didn’t look like he was breathing,” Ms Evans said.
“He told me I was over-exaggerating and I left.”
Hainsworth said “if I opened my mouth he’d bury me in the pines,” Ms Evans said.
Four people gave evidence during the trial that Hainsworth had made admissions to them about the murders, including Dale Kennett, who was a friend of Mr Newton.
Mr Kennett told the court that he was confronted in prison by Hainsworth, who told him: “You and your brother are both dogs and I’m going to get you in this unit, or another unit, and I’ll make you number 4”.
"Did you understand what he meant by that?" Mr Hinton asked.
"He's already killed three, that I believe, and I was going to be the fourth," Mr Kennett told the court.
Justice Kimber has reserved his decision.
