Court Told Of Pair's Debts
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday July 27, 2004
THE first time Michelle Willard tried to make an insurance claim on her husband's life he was still alive, Newcastle Supreme Court heard yesterday.
She failed in that first attempt in 1998 because she did not have the appropriate documentation, namely a death certificate, Crown prosecutor Peter Barnett told the court. Before trying it again, she took out $235,000 worth of life insurance in her husband's name and arranged for him to be killed "execution" style, Mr Barnett said.Willard is accused of murdering her husband Michael Willard, who was shot in the head as he lay sleeping on a couch in the family's Muswellbrook home on February 22, 2003. During the course of her trial, and again yesterday, the court heard that when Willard made a telephone inquiry about life insurance she asked specifically whether it covered being shot and killed. In summing up his case yesterday Mr Barnett said the Willards were in serious financial difficulty at the time of Mr Willard's death.They had missed out on rent payments, left the car unregistered for three months and had a history of unpaid bills and outstanding debts. More than 20 cheques had been written out to be drawn from an account held by them, which never had any money deposited into it, he said, and Mr Willard's account was overdrawn four days before his death. On his death, with life insurance policies and superannuation, Mr Willard was worth $378,000 to his sole beneficiary, his wife. She had made inquiries about the purchase of a house worth $230,000, and on the day of her husband's death, on the way to the funeral parlour, she visited the real estate agent to tell him to proceed with the purchase negotiations, the court heard.In Willard's defence, her barrister Belinda Rigg said it was true that Willard had made a fraudulent insurance claim in 1998 but that said nothing about her relationship with her husband."It says nothing about her feelings for her husband, nothing about her love for her husband or the importance, in an ongoing sense, of her life with him," she said.It was not a house that Willard wanted, Ms Rigg said, it was a family home that they both wanted.Ms Rigg told the jury it was only in response to a marketing campaign specifically targeted at people like Willard that the woman made the first calls to Westpac in relation to an accidental death insurance policy."There is no evidence as to whether it was Mrs Willard's idea or not," Ms Rigg said.The trial continues.
© 2004 Newcastle Herald