IAN Thomas – the man accused of murdering his parents on the family farm near Wangaratta – has given a graphic account of how he found his mother lying dead in a shed before confronting his father who was pointing a shotgun at him.
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Giving evidence in his defence on Tuesday, Thomas told a Supreme Court jury he had been out drinking on his own in bushland when he returned to the farm to find his mother's body covered in a drop sheet at about 8.30pm on April 21, 2013.
Thomas said he pulled off the sheet and realised his mother was dead, saying: “Her eyes were glazed over, she had her tongue hanging out of her mouth and she had a cable tie around her neck”.
Thomas said his first thought after finding his mother was where was his father? He claimed he picked up a wooden pickaxe handle to defend himself and went up to the house.
Thomas said he walked into his parents' master bedroom where he found his father standing inside the walk-in wardrobe pointing the single-gauge shotgun at him.
“I froze,” Thomas said.
“I dropped the pickaxe handle. He moved forward and cocked the weapon at point-blank range.”
Thomas said the shotgun was pointed just centimetres from his chest when he grabbed the barrel and “reefed” it out of his father's grasp.
He said he turned the shotgun on his father, moved backwards and pulled the trigger.
Asked by Justice Lex Lasry if he had fired the shotgun deliberately, Thomas said, "Yes, I did your honour."
Thomas said after shooting his father, all he could think about was his mother lying dead in the shed and he went “insane”, repeatedly hitting his dead father with the pickaxe handle.
He said he then walked up and down the house trying to process what had happened before washing the blood from his hands.
Thomas told the jury he then went out to the shed to carry his mother back to the house.
“Just couldn't leave her down in the shed, on the shed floor,” he said.
Thomas could not remember why he placed his mother face down next to his father or why they were positioned head to toe. He removed the cable tie from around his mother's neck because it “looked ghastly”.
Thomas has pleaded not guilty to murdering his parents, William, 65, and Pauline, 63, at their Great Alpine Road home between Wangaratta and Tarrawingee, on April 21, 2013.
The Crown case against Thomas is that he strangled his mother before laying in wait for his father, shooting him in the chest and beating him around the head with the pickaxe handle.
The trial continues.
