DANIEL Thomas’ babysitter told several people she had buried the Myrtleford toddler’s body, an inquest heard yesterday.
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But Mandy Martyn has maintained she did not kill him and that she was not the last to see the little boy alive.
Meanwhile, Daniel’s mother Donna Thomas conceded she took part in the ongoing abuse of the two-year-old, claiming she was “scared” of defying Ms Martyn.
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The admissions were revealed yesterday during the second day of the inquest at the Wangaratta Coroners Court into Daniel’s death.
Detective Sgt Russell Sheather told the inquest Ms Martyn had told her drug and alcohol counsellor on March 19, 2008 — the day after Daniel’s body was found — that she saw Ms Thomas strangle Daniel, but that she had been the one to bury him under the house.
Sgt Sheather said she allegedly made a second similar disclosure to her carer.
He said Ms Martyn was under police surveillance in 2007 when several conversations were recorded, in which she told people she had put Daniel to bed on Tuesday, October 14, three days before she reported him missing, but both he and Ms Thomas were gone the next morning.
The inquest was told on Tuesday that Ms Martyn subjected the boy to ongoing physical abuse including hitting and tying him up.
But yesterday, Sgt Sheather said statements from Ms Martyn turned those allegations, and others, on Ms Thomas.
He said police were faxed a handwritten note from Ms Martyn in early 2004, claiming Ms Thomas was setting her up.
She had declared her innocence in large letters: “I did not kill Daniel”.
The note described Ms Thomas trying to strangle Daniel on his bed on October 14.
Ms Martyn said Ms Thomas was screaming: “I hate you, you little bastard, my life would be so much better without you. I wish you would die, just die you dog”.
She said the next morning, when Ms Thomas had left the house to attend a parenting course in Shepparton, Daniel was gone too and “denial and shock kicked in”.
Ms Martyn told police that when Ms Thomas rang from Shepparton to ask how Daniel was, “I knew she was trying to set me up”.
Sgt Sheather said the original note was not found during a search last week of Ms Martyn’s solicitor’s office; however a second note from May 2008 was tendered to court yesterday, making similar statements on the attempted strangulation.
“The thumping I could hear was his little feet kicking ... I immediately grabbed Donna, she had an evil look on her face,” it said.
Ms Martyn, who has been subpoenaed to give evidence next week, has given three “no comment” interviews to police during investigations.
Ms Thomas told police in 2003 she had seen her son lying motionless on the bedroom floor surrounded by bloody towels after hearing a “thump”, on the night of Monday, October 13.
But she gave new evidence in February 2004, shown to the court yesterday, that this incident must have happened on the Tuesday, the same night she claimed to have also seen Ms Martyn trying to drown Daniel.
She admitted she had smacked Daniel and had helped Ms Martyn tie him to the bed or discipline him, because she was scared of disobeying her.
But Ms Thomas denied strangling him and denied having any knowledge he was dead.
The court also heard from Ms Thomas’s niece Jennifer Greenwood, with whom Ms Thomas stayed in Shepparton between October 15 and 17 in 2003.
Ms Greenwood said her aunt was reluctant to go back to Myrtleford or call to see how Daniel was, but was “in hysterics” when she found out on the Friday that Daniel was missing.
Ms Martyn reported Daniel missing on October 17, 2003.
His remains were found five years later by a dog under a house in Lawrence Street, Myrtleford, where Ms Thomas lived before moving in with Ms Martyn.
The inquest before Coroner Jacinta Heffey continues today.
