John Bowie has been found guilty of murdering his wife Roxlyn in Walgett 40 years ago.
After just four-and-a-half hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict in the Bowie murder trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court.
The 72-year-old stood accused of murdering his wife Roxlyn on or about June 5, 1982, while the couple lived in Walgett in north-west New South Wales with their two young children. Her body has never been found.
The jury heard four weeks of crown witnesses before finding the accused guilty.
The offender maintained his innocence for 40 years, telling the court he came home from the pub on the night of Saturday, June 5, 1982, to find his wife missing and their two children asleep in their beds.
The couple's only living child Brenda Boyd cried as she spoke outside court after the guilty verdict was handed down.
"I just know she didn't leave my brother and I and this has vindicated that. My grandparents aren't here, my brother's not here, a lot of her family members have sadly passed away but we've done all this for them," she said.
The Crown submitted that Bowie murdered Ms Bowie that night at some point between 7pm and 11pm to assume an unfettered, serious relationship with a woman he met the month before.
It said Bowie could have finalised disposing the victim’s body at any point between 7pm on June 5 and when he left Walgett later that month.
Crown prosecutor Alex Morris told the court Bowie likely disposed of his wife’s body by feeding her to pigs at a local piggery he was involved with.
During the trial, six Crown witnesses told the court Bowie told them “pigs don’t leave any evidence, not even bones” after his wife’s disappearance, with one recalling the offender said he was having trouble with the police but it was OK because “pigs don’t leave any evidence”.
Mr Morris did not rule out the possibility Ms Bowie’s remains were discarded in a “bone pit” at the nearby kangaroo abattoir.
Mr Morris said the contents of the pit — typically the remains of skinned kangaroos — were set alight once every three weeks.
Defence barrister SC Winston Terracini criticised the police investigation and argued although the accused admitted he was "a womaniser" and had been violent in his marriage, that did not mean he was a murderer.
A "Dear John" letter was left behind, which the court heard was written by Ms Bowie, stating she was "leaving her husband and children", with a second note with a similar message received by her parents three days later.
But the Crown told the court Bowie forced or coerced his wife to write the two letters before killing her.
In his closing statement Mr Morris told the jury that "given the history of violence" in Ms Bowie's relationship with her husband it was unlikely she would willingly leave her "beloved two children in the care of a violent man".
Witness testimonies described seeing the victim with bruises, including a black eye and grab marks on her arms.
The Crown said Mr Bowie tended to be intentionally violent to women he was in domestic relationships with, including the alleged victim.
Mr Morris highlighted earlier testimony from Mr Bowie's now former partner Anne Bowie, who told the court she required surgery on her knee after he "picked her up off the bed and threw her across the room".
Mr Morris outlined statements from almost 20 witnesses praising Ms Bowie as a mother, claiming "her children were her life" and "never left her side".
The Crown said a letter sent from Ms Bowie to her mother three weeks before she disappeared gave "a direct window into Ms Bowie's thoughts, mind and her view of her children" at that time.
"I hope I live to see my kids grown up and have kids themselves, but then again I might not, because nobody knows what might happen," Ms Bowie wrote.
The Crown said it was powerful evidence of her strong maternal bond and the improbability that she just "walked away" three weeks later.
Ms Boyd said she had "been waiting 40 years for this day".
"I'm overwhelmed," she said. "It's surreal, it's bittersweet really. I can't believe it — and so quickly too."
Of taking the stand in her father's murder trial she said "I was very anxious, nervous, stressed, it was hard to do".
Now-retired NSW police officer Russell Oxford began investigating the case in 1988.
"This is a case that started 40 years ago. We've never given up thanks to the effort of Brenda, who was a little six-year-old girl when this happened," he said.
"We went through a lot for over 40 years; I've only been involved for 34. We never gave up, we always believed she'd died and was killed at the hands of John Bowie.
"We just continued to put the case together methodically and the verdict today was sensational."
Bowie's sentencing date has been set for December 2.
