John Douglas Bowie,72,has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife Roxlyn Bowie who vanished from Walgett,in north-west NSW,on June 5,1982.
Roxlyn and John Bowie.NSW Police
The Crown alleges Bowie killed the 31-year-old to pursue an unfettered,serious relationship with another woman,.
A witness gave evidence in the Supreme Court in Sydney on Wednesday about being on the Walgett golf course with his friend one afternoonin 1982,when he was 12.
The man,who cannot be identified as he was a juvenile,said he saw a man in the gully on his knees but “didn’t actually see what he dug this hole with”. He said the man had red hair,a red moustache and a leather hat.
“He’s pulling dirt out of the hole with one hand,he reaches in,he had this massive big jacket on,I believe that it was a Driza-Bone ... I see him pull something out of his pocket,it was something white ... actually seen him put it in the hole and cover it up. Then he hopped up and walked away.”
He estimated he watched for five minutes from about 50 metres away with “good vision”,and told the court “whatever he was doing,he was doing it quick”.
The witness said he and his friend ran down “to see what this person put in the ground”. The soil was “turned upside down” and they dug it up.
“I realised it was pantyhose ... pantyhose and bra,” he said,adding that they were white cotton.
“We put it back in the hole which this person dug,and we covered it up,and then we took off. We never went back over there ever again.”
The man said he frequented the ambulance station as a boy to speak to officer Norm Pearson,and another officer “stood out” with red hair and a moustache. He went to the station the day after the gully “to see if this person was the same person I’d seen on the golf course”.
John Bowie was arrested in 2019 and charged with Roxlyn Bowie’s murder.AAP
“It was Norm Pearson and Mr Bowie,” he said,adding that he “didn’t know his name” at the time.
“I spoke to Norm,and who should be standing right next to me?[It] was the same person ... it was the red-headed ambulance officer who I’d seen the day before in the gully.”
He said he knew only one red-headed person in town and did not see the officer again after that day.
The court heard he visited the site with police in August this year and it “didn’t look like a gully,it was a lot flatter”. He said that,in the 40 years since,“about 30 floods” would have passed through.
In his opening address,Crown prosecutor Alex Morris said:“The Crown case is that[the two boys] had seen Mr Bowie bury some of the clothes Roxlyn was wearing at the time he killed her.”
Under cross-examination from defence barrister Winston Terracini,SC,the man said he had first called Crime Stoppers in 2019 after seeing Bowie on TV,and he spoke to police this year.
He denied any knowledge of a $1 million police reward and dismissed the suggestion he had only come forward to make a quick buck.
He conceded his statement did not include a reference to the sighting being in 1982 but said he was born in 1970 and knew “from fact I was 12”.
In response to Terracini’s suggestion he was a liar,the man replied,“No,I’m not.”
Roxlyn and John Bowie’s daughter,Brenda Boyd,told the court last week that her father had “bright red hair and a bright red moustache”.
Family friend Brian Knight gave evidence earlier on Wednesday about a call he and his wife had received from Bowie in 1982 “saying something like,‘Roxlyn’s bolted.’”
He was asked by Bowie to collect the children from Walgett and drive them to their grandparents in Sydney.
Asked by the prosecutor about the accused’s hair colour,Knight said,“historically,it’s been fiery red hair”.
The defence has said that,while Bowie was not a “perfect fellow”,he did not kill his wife.
The trial before Justice Dina Yehia continues.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories,analysis and insights..