A courtroom was recently presented with a gripping case where a man reportedly experienced a drug overdose after his mother allegedly mixed prescription medication into a fruit smoothie, ultimately leading to his death.
The 59-year-old woman is also facing allegations of attempting to kill her son earlier that same year.
During last week’s proceedings, the defense team suggested the possibility that Jonathan, the victim, might have inadvertently or intentionally overdosed on his medication.
At the Brisbane Supreme Court, Rebekah Millard, who was involved with Jonathan from 2012 for a year and a half, provided her testimony.
Defense barrister Angus Edwards questioned Millard, asking, “About eight months into your relationship, did he suffer a drug overdose?”
Millard noted that while Jonathan regularly used the prescription drug tramadol, he never mentioned taking oxycodone, another painkiller.
The jury previously heard a pathologist determined the cause of Jonathan’s death was an excessive amount of the drug oxycodone in his bloodstream.
Edwards asked if Jonathan said he had taken the overdose as he “could not handle it anymore”.
Millard said she could not recall but agreed she had told a previous court hearing that Jonathan gave that explanation.
She agreed Jonathan had wild mood swings and always threatened to kill himself.
“When around friends he was the happy-go-lucky Jonathan but when it was just us it was a different story,” she said.
Jonathan was a “troubled man” with abusive behaviours who had been charged with robbing a chemist, the jury heard.
A car crash in 2015 had left him with permanent injuries requiring physical care.
Crabtree lived in a house with Jonathan and his sister Tara.
Crabtree had said before Jonathan’s death that he was “eating her out of house and home” and had the “brain capacity of a six-year-old,” the Crabtrees’ neighbour Vicki Inglis testified today.
“Jonathan had ownership of the house and she could not get him out of there,” Inglis said Crabtree had told her during conversations between the car crash and his death.
Inglis was the latest of multiple witnesses to testify that Crabtree talked about giving Jonathan drugs.
“Marie said ‘I should put something in one of his syringes?’”crown prosecutor Caroline Marco asked.
“Yes. On a number of occasions over a number of months,” Inglis said.
Crabtree made the remarks while talking about seeing Jonathan shooting up drugs in his bedroom, the jury heard.
“Did she say the reason to put something in his syringe was to harm him or do him some harm?” Edwards asked.
The trial is due to run for another four weeks before Justice Martin Burns and hear from dozens more witnesses.
