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An accused murderer who will face trial over the death of his girlfriend, whose body was found at the bottom of a beach cliffside almost 30 years ago, had told a friend he “snapped”, a Queensland court has heard.
Keith Lees, 73, was on Thursday committed to a trial in Supreme Court over the alleged murder of his 25-year-old partner Meaghan Louise Rose, who was found dead at Point Cartwright Cliffs on the Sunshine Coast in 1997.
Lees and Rose, from Morwell, Victoria, had been living together in the South East Queensland region at the time of her death, which had been ruled a suicide until cold case detectives reopened the case.
Several people gave evidence to the two-day committal hearing, including an acquaintance of Lees’, Michelle Burke, who told the court she had spoken with the alleged killer in recent years.
“I snapped,” he said in one conversation, she told the court, a comment she interpreted as an admission.
Burke told the court that she heard from Lees that the 25-year-old Victorian had said she was going home and leaving him.
The court heard Burke had sent text messages to Lees in 2022, in which she swore at him. She had written: “I am your nightmare”, and “I will haunt you, Keith”, the court heard.
In messages sent in June that year, the court heard she wrote: “you don’t care” and “her sister was an ice head, her brother kicked her out”.
Another message read: “You have said something else to basically admission in my eyes, you didn’t say you did it but basically did. Lol I’m Meaghan’s angel.”
In court, Burke was asked about that text message, and whether he had, in fact, admitted to the crime.
“Yes, he did,” she said. “Yes, he did. He came around to my house and he knew, I knew. He said he snapped. He said many things in that conversation.”
In one conversation, Burke had asked Lees asked about the cliff, and whether he had pushed or shoved Rose, the court heard.
Burke said Lees would not say, and she had responded that it was between him and God.
She also said she asked him was there anything the police could “get him for”.
“He said yes, and I was shocked.”
Burke said Lees told her he went to the cliff the day after Rose’s death, where he found a pair of glasses. He said he sent the smashed glass to Rose’s family, and he kept the frames.
“He goes, ‘I made them into sunglasses, I paid for them’, and he thought that was funny,” she told the court.
The court on Thursday also heard from a witness, Rachel Burt, who was a friend of Rose’s. Burt’s statement detailed how Lees and Burt had discussed Rose’s behaviour.
“When she had been around Keith she would become distressed and sometimes illogical,” she told the court.
Burt also recalled how at a function Rose had one drink, a song came on and she became very upset.
“She would become irrational, and you couldn’t have a logical conversation with her and talk through things.”
Burt also recalled how Lees had claimed Rose had attempted suicide when they had lived in Victoria.
Under cross-examination by Lees’ barrister, Simon Lewis, Burt was asked about a conversation she had with Lees over an insurance policy taken out in Rose’s name.
Crown prosecutor Sarah Dennis told the court on Wednesday there was a life insurance policy for $250,000 on Rose’s life, and Lees was the beneficiary. Under the terms of the policy, death by suicide would not be covered until 13 months had elapsed.
“Ms Rose died only 13 months and three weeks after taking out the policy,” Dennis told the court.
Lewis put to Burt on Thursday that the policy certainly was “not a dirty little secret”. Burt agreed.
“It appeared he was almost bragging that he got the money,” she told the court.
Magistrate Chris Callaghan committed Lees to stand trial on Thursday.
As he began to speak, Lees told the magistrate: “I haven’t discussed any of this with my legal team, so.”
The court was briefly adjourned so Lees could speak with his solicitor, before he was eventually committed to trial at a later date.
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Cloe Read is the crime and court reporter at Brisbane Times.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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