A Tasmanian man who dismembered his friend and threw most of his body parts in wheelie bins around the state's north has been found guilty of murder.
Key points:
- The jury unanimously found Jack Harrison Vincent Sadler, 29, guilty of murdering his former friend Jake Anderson-Brettner
- Sadler blamed his interstate drug suppliers for the murder, saying he was only responsible for disposing of the body parts
- It took the 12 person jury four and a half hours to unanimously find Sadler guilty
It took the 12 person jury four and a half hours to unanimously find Jack Harrison Vincent Sadler, 29, of the Launceston suburb of Riverside, guilty of murdering Jake Anderson-Brettner in August 2018.
WARNING: This story contains details that may cause distress.
Mr Anderson-Brettner's family, including his mother, and friends were in the Supreme Court every day during the trial which ran for more than two weeks.
Most of the evidence presented was circumstantial as no-one giving evidence, apart from the accused, was in the same room where the killing occurred.
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)During the trial, jurors heard Sadler and Mr Anderson-Brettner, who was 24 at the time of his death, had been friends since 2014 and had developed a drug dealing operation together.
The court heard Sadler would get ecstasy and cocaine from Victorian suppliers he had met through his work as a bouncer at a Launceston nightclub, which Mr Anderson-Brettner would then sell around Launceston.
At that time, the court heard Mr Anderson-Brettner was working as an apprentice butcher.
The court heard Sadler later started manufacturing ecstasy himself in Tasmania.
Jurors were told their friendship started to deteriorate in late 2017 and into early 2018 when Mr Anderson-Brettner developed a rising drug debt with the Victorian suppliers.
Killed out of anger: prosecutors
The court heard that the pair had agreed to meet at Mr Sadler's Riverside home on August 15, 2018.
Prosecutors said Sadler then shot Mr Anderson-Brettner three times in the torso in a room he had lined with plastic ready for murder because he was "angry at him".
ABC News: Manika Dadson
)The court heard Sadler was "copping flak" from the interstate drug suppliers over Mr Anderson-Brettner's six-figure supplier debt.
But Sadler had pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and argued it was the Victorian drug suppliers who had shot his friend, not him, and he was told to clean up the mess and dispose of the body.
Sadler said that the drug suppliers had come to Tasmania to meet with him and Mr Anderson-Brettner on that night because of the debt.
When the accused took the stand in the final days of his trial, he admitted he cut his friend into six pieces and disposed of the body but said he was instructed to do so by the Victorian men.
"I was told to 'cut the body up and get rid of it'."
Sadler claimed that was exactly what he did.
He told jurors Mr Anderson-Brettner's drug debt was then passed onto him.
Sadler refused to name the three Victorian men, telling the prosecution "I'm not going to tell you … I'm not going to put my family in danger".
Fiancée jailed for role
Sadler told jurors he and his then fiancée Gemma Clark disposed of Mr Anderson-Brettner's torso hours after he was killed, in bushland off a highway in the state's north-east.
The couple put other body parts in garbage bags and dumped them in wheelie bins around northern Tasmania.
Clark is serving a five-and-a-half-year jail sentence for her role in the disposal, after she pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact of murder and failing to report the killing.
She can apply for parole this August.
Police and volunteers spent days searching Launceston's tip in August 2018 for the other body parts, but the torso was the only part of Mr Anderson-Brettner ever found.
An autopsy of his torso determined he was shot three times – the first was a fatal shot into his back which perpetrated the right ventricle of the heart, the other two shots were fired into the right side of his chest.
Murder weapon was Sadler's gun
The gun police found, which the prosecution and defence both agreed was the murder weapon, belonged to Sadler.
The court heard he had a gun because of his drug-making and trafficking lifestyle.
The defence had argued the Victorian drug suppliers picked up the gun off Sadler's kitchen table and used it to shoot Mr Anderson-Brettner.
The set up
During the trial, the court heard Clark had purchased plastic, disposable gloves, goggles, overalls, a saw, cayenne pepper and chilli powder the day before and the day of the murder at the request of Sadler.
The prosecution told the court all the items were intentionally purchased to commit a "pre-planned" murder – the plastic to line the murder room; the gloves, goggles and overalls for the body's disposal and the cayenne pepper and chilli powder to disguise the smell of decomposing body parts.
The defence argued all the items were purchased with the intentional of drug manufacturing and trafficking – the plastic to keep drug dust off walls; the gloves, goggles and overalls to wear during the manufacturing stage; and the cayenne pepper and chilli powder to disguise the smell of the drugs when they were being transported.
The defence told the court the saw was purchased to cut down bushes in the couple's backyard because they had given their dog allergies.
Rapper's song allegedly helped inspire killer
Jurors heard the accused had regularly been listening to a song called Dead Body Disposal by rapper Necro in the days leading up to the murder.
The court heard Sadler disposed off Mr Anderson-Brettner's body in a very similar way to what was suggested in the song.
"I'm not suggesting everything he's done is the same as the song, but the major things that have happened are consistent with this song," Daryl Coates SC told jurors in his closing arguments.
Defence lawyer Greg Richardson's closing arguments urged jurors to only find his client guilty of being an accessory after the fact of murder.
Mr Richardson said disposing of the body and cleaning up the house with his fiancée were the only roles Sadler had played.
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2021-05-19 23:54:45Z
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