It was while allegedly scoping out the best spot to murder Bruce Saunders that Gregory Lee Roser says Peter Koenig boasted of having killed before.
Koenig thought it was funny, Roser has told the Brisbane supreme court.
The two men were driving around the north of Brisbane at the time, Roser alleged, searching for secluded areas as part of the latest plan to kill Saunders – a fishing trip murder.
“He said the best way to get rid of someone is to take them out fishing, knock them out, cut their feet, throw them over and let the sharks do the rest,” Roser told the supreme court jury this week.
But each time Koenig identified a potential location, Roser says he made up an excuse to sabotage the plan. The conversation took a further dark turn during the drive, the court heard.
A laughing Koenig said he had pushed a man into an Adelaide abattoir’s meat grinder, Roser alleged.
Months later, Saunders was dead. His body was found in a woodchipper after he went to clear trees with Koenig and Roser at a property north of Brisbane in November 2017.
Sharon Graham, 61, is accused of asking Roser and Koenig to kill her ex-partner and make it look like an accident.
Graham and Roser, 63, have pleaded not guilty to murder, with the former successfully applying for a separate trial.
Koenig pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder earlier this year.
Crown prosecutor David Meredith told Roser’s murder trial it was laughable to consider the quiet, “monosyllabic” Koenig as a man with underworld links.
Roser said Graham told him Koenig had “a Mafia connection” and knew people who could “get rid of you”.
The two men had become embroiled in Graham’s various schemes to murder Saunders for his $750,000 life insurance, Roser alleged.
Roser was first asked to murder Saunders at the Nambour home he shared with Graham, the court heard.
Then Graham allegedly gave him Koenig’s handgun in a plan to ambush Saunders near his workplace.
The ill-fated fishing trip was also discussed. Each time, Roser says he refused.
By mid-October 2017, Graham told both men about her new plot to kill Saunders while clearing trees at a friend’s property, Roser alleged.
The idea was to make the death look like an accident. “I said I am not fucking doing it,” Roser told the court.
But pressure mounted during their final day at the property, when Koenig allegedly told him he had to get rid of Saunders and that “Sharon is depending on you”.
Graham sent abusive texts telling him to “hurry up and do the job”, the court heard.
Roser said he refused and kept working. Next, he heard a couple of whip crack or gunshot sounds and saw Saunders slumped on the machine, he told the jurors.
“I said what the fucking hell is going on here,” Roser said. “He said ‘well, it is done now’.”
Wary of Koenig’s alleged “dangerous criminal associates”, he complied when asked to help dispose of the body, the court heard.
Roser alleged Koenig fired up the chipper, hooked Saunders’ arm around a branch and pushed it into the machine.
Saunders’ clothes tore off as his body went through the grinding mechanism, before Koenig stopped the chipper with the victim’s legs sticking out.
“He said ‘oh that should be enough’,” Roser said, adding that Koenig took charge and ensured they got their story straight before police arrived.
The crown prosecutor said Koenig talked very little and he was not the kind of “dynamic” person who would come up with a detailed plan of what to tell the police.
“[Graham] has enlisted you because you were keen to be with her and you gave the impression you could actually … kill Bruce,” Meredith said.
But Roser protested, telling the court: “I wanted to be with her, but I didn’t want to kill anyone.”
He said he was initially convinced Graham’s murderous plans would fizzle out, so he never approached the police.
After Saunders was killed, Graham and Koenig allegedly told Roser if he spoke to anyone about what happened they would “make life uncomfortable”.
Convinced they were having an affair, Roser also feared Graham and Koenig would point the finger at him. Koenig was always around and had a strange intimacy with Graham, the court heard.
She would call Koenig “Boo Boo” and hand-feed him food while at other times Roser saw them kissing and cuddling, he said.
Roser remained by Graham’s side after Saunders’ death, even moving into the dead man’s room with her the night following the woodchipper incident.
“I was very lonely at that stage,” Roser told the court.
When asked if he was appalled by Saunder’s woodchipper death, Roser told the jury he was. “Oh yeah … I was really cut up about [it].”
The trial before Justice Martin Burns continues on Monday.