Murder trial hears of psychic’s ‘message’
A message from a psychic medium figured in the third afternoon’s evidence at the murder trial of Helen Elizabeth Milner in the High Court at Christchurch.
The subject came up in evidence from Detective Richard Prosser who had described a series of inquiries that followed the death of Milner’s 47-year-old husband, Philip James Nisbet, in May 2009.
Milner, 50, denies two charges of attempting to murder Mr Nisbet in April 2009, and murdering him the following month when the Crown alleges she put the anti-allergy and sedative drug Phenergan in his food and then smothered him when he lay unconscious in his bed.
The defence case is that it is reasonably possible that Mr Nisbet took his own life, while the Crown has accused Milner of sending a suicide text from his phone to her own phone and pretending to find it there when police were attending the sudden death scene at the home next morning.
Detective Prosser read two statements given to police by Milner after the death in which she talked about their relationship during their five-year marriage.
In the second statement she said she was hurt at how Mr Nisbet’s family had turned on her after his death. She said that the last time she had seen his sister, Lee-Anne Yvonne Cartier, from Australia, Mrs Cartier had said: “I’ll destroy you, you bitch, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Defence counsel April Kelland questioned the detective about a phone call he received from Mrs Cartier in July 2009.
She told him that she had seen a psychic medium who had told her that Milner had sent the suicide text to herself.
In her statements, Milner referred to Mrs Cartier questioning whether the signature on a suicide note found in Mr Nisbet’s briefcase was correct. When she spoke to the police about the note, Detective Prosser pointed out that the suicide note did not actually have a written signature — just a typed one.
The Crown has alleged that there were two notes, as well as the text message.
The trial will resume at 9am on Thursday, with evidence from a doctor by video-link from Britain.
The trial, before Justice David Gendall and a jury, is scheduled to run for three weeks.
Category: News
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