Prosecution sums up case in drug-spiked smoothie trial

When paramedics found Jonathan Crabtree, he had allegedly been dead for at least three hours.

It was the morning of July 19, 2017, and his body was lying on a bed with an iPod and iPad around him. There were also blank pieces of paper and a pen.

His mother, Maree, called Triple Zero. Although her son was dead, she told the operator she could not be sure whether he was breathing or not.

This is the prosecution case against Maree Mavis Crabtree, 59, who stands accused of killing her 26-year-old son with a drug-spiked smoothie.

The prosecution has argued that Crabtree prepared a smoothie spiked with the prescription drug oxycodone in July 2017 at the family’s Gold Coast home, and later made a $125,000 insurance claim.

She pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder, and fraud charges when her trial began in the Supreme Court last month.

In her closing statements on Tuesday, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Caroline Marco told the jury that Jonathan had died from a toxic dose of oxycodone, causing him to choke on his own vomit.

He suffered irritation in the lungs, and developed pneumonia, she said.

“That was a gradual process that occurred over four to eight hours,” Marco said.

“The defendant, Maree Crabtree, says that when she found Jonathan in his room dead, he was in the same position that she saw him in the night before at 11pm when he was watching television.”

Marco said although Jonathan was deceased, Crabtree told the Triple Zero operator she could not be sure he was breathing.

Marco said the jury should take evidence from Jonathan’s sister, Tara, as honest and reliable, saying it was most crucial in determining a verdict.

The jury earlier heard that Tara, Crabtree’s adult daughter, claimed she watched the hallway and kitchen where her mother crushed up prescription painkillers and anti-anxiety tablets while Jonathan was passed out in bed.

“Tara Crabtree says that when she first saw Jonathan dead on the morning of July 19, 2017, before she and her mother went for a walk, he was not lying in the position that he was located in by paramedics, and [Tara] did not move him.

“Tara says that her mother confirmed that morning before they left the house that she knew Jonathan was dead.”

Marco said the jury had heard Tara’s evidence that implicated her mother in the intentional killing of her brother, and of an earlier aborted attempt to kill him.

“You have heard of the evident antipathy [Crabtree] felt towards her son, and her desire to have him removed from the house and the financial windfall that presented itself to her when he died.”

The jury has heard Jonathan was a violent drug addict with a traumatic brain injury, who could not be evicted because he partly owned the Gold Coast home.

Marco said Tara had described her relationship with her mother as unhealthy, and compared it to domestic violence.

The daughter was directed by her mother not to help Jonathan during the night, Marco said, and to tell police it was a suicide.

Tara has been granted indemnity from prosecution in exchange for her evidence.

Angus Edwards KC, representing Crabtree, began his closing statements on Tuesday afternoon, where he put to the jury it was possible Jonathan took drugs to kill himself, or took drugs to get high and accidentally overdosed.

Edwards said the other possibility was that Tara could have killed Jonathan. He said Tara was the one person who had benefited the most.

Edwards said the evidence was overwhelming that Jonathan had suicidal ideation, and that stretched from 2012 until the night he died.

Jonathan had a “lot of demons”, Edwards said, referencing how he had been violent with a girlfriend, and that when they broke up, he threatened to kill himself with Valium.

Edwards is expected to continue his closing statements on Wednesday.

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