The primary suspect in the 2009 disappearance of pregnant Pyramid Hill woman Krystal Fraser has been excused from giving evidence at a coronial inquest.
Gunbower man Peter "PJ" Jenkinson told Coroners Court of Victoria in Melbourne he objected to giving evidence before Coroner Katherine Lorenz.
Ms Lorenz said there was a real risk of Mr Jenkinson incriminating himself before the court.
"I think the gravity of the alleged offences and the ongoing homicide investigation into Krystal Fraser's disappearance and presumed death necessitates me to excuse Mr Jenkinson from giving evidence," Ms Lorenz said.
"I am satisfied that there are reasonable grounds that there is a risk that your evidence, Mr Jenkinson, may tend to prove the commission of an offence or offences against Miss Krystal Fraser."
Ms Fraser, 23, discharged herself from hospital in Bendigo on the morning of her disappearance in 2009.
She was days away from giving birth to a boy when she returned home to Pyramid Hill for a birthday party.
Counsel assisting Mr Jenkinson, Emma Strugnell, outlined the grounds for his objection to giving evidence in court.
"The (grounds) are Mr Jenkinson is known to Miss Fraser, they did have a prior sexual relationship," Ms Strugnell said.
"It's clear from the evidence and this inquest that he's a person of interest and remains a person of interest."
Phone box key evidence
Police told the inquest Mr Jenkinson and Ms Fraser exchanged more than 2,000 phone calls and text messages.
The inquest was told the pair were having an affair.
Detective Senior Constable Brett Thexton told the court "everything" in the investigation into Ms Fraser's disappearance "leads back to the Leitchville phone box".
"There were in excess of 2,200 contacts between Peter Jenkinson and Krystal Fraser that ended in a nine-minute phone call from Peter Jenkinson's landline to Krystal Fraser's mobile," he told the inquest.
Detective Senior Constable Thexton said contact between the pair changed after May 13, 2009, when he said Mr Jenkinson started calling Ms Fraser from the Leitchville phone box.
The inquest heard 19 phone calls took place between the Leitchville phone box and Ms Fraser's mobile phone.
Detective Senior Constable Thexton told the inquest police believed Mr Jenkinson made the calls from the Leitchville phone.
"And in his police interview, Mr Jenkinson says he rarely used the phone box at Leitchville?" counsel assisting the coroner, Fiona Batten, asked.
"He said he had used the phone box in around March or April of that year," Detective Senior Constable Thexton said.
Ms Strugnell later asked Detective Senior Constable Thexton if there was any forensic evidence to suggest Mr Jenkinson was the one to make the calls from the phone box.
"No," Detective Senior Constable Thexton said.
The inquest heard that on the day Ms Fraser disappeared, two phone calls were made from the Leitchville phone box to Ms Fraser's mobile phone.
Ms Strugnell told the inquest Mr Jenkinson had been interviewed three times, had his property searched three times and had his vehicles, hard drives and business diaries searched or seized.
Multiple theories
The week-long inquest has heard various witness statements about what may have happened to Ms Fraser.
Detective Senior Constable Thexton told the court that he believed police followed up evidence from witness Susan MacGillvray that Steven Jones showed her a bag of bloodied rags in the months after the disappearance claiming them to be covered in Ms Fraser's blood with stab holes in them.
The court also heard that a man named Jason had burnt his clothes in his backyard and a woman named Carly had told a friend the girl he killed was heavily pregnant.
The inquest was told a different witness, who was out tending to a cannabis crop at Mount Hope, told police that he watched Jason strangle Ms Fraser before disappearing with her body over a ledge on the north side of Mount Hope, known by locals as Suicide Rock, and coming back alone.
The inquest also heard last week Ms Fraser was last seen getting into a red station wagon with a man telling her to "get in, get in".
Ms Fraser's friend Robert Glennie told the inquest the car belonged to a former Boort police officer Ray Stone.
But Detective Senior Constable Thexton said police had since looked into Mr Stone and said he bought a maroon sedan in December 2009, after Ms Fraser's disappearance, and later sold it in 2020.
