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Karen Ristevski: husband charged with murder of Melbourne woman Karen Ristevski: husband charged with murder of Melbourne woman
(35 minutes later)
Borce Ristevski has been charged with murdering his wife Karen, whose body was found in Victorian bushland after she went missing in 2016. Borce Ristevski will fight a charge he murdered his wife Karen, whose body was found in Victorian bushland months after she went missing in 2016.
Detectives from the Missing Persons Squad arrested the 53-year-old at 7.20am on Wednesday. Homicide detectives arrested the 53-year-old on Wednesday morning and a short time later he faced Melbourne magistrates court charged with his wife’s murder.
Ristevski has been charged with one count of murder and will appear in the Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday morning. “He will be pleading not guilty,” his lawyer Rob Stary told magistrate Angela Bolger.
Ristevski went missing from her Oakley Drive, Avondale Heights home on the morning of 29 June in 2016. Prosecutor Andrew Tinney SC said police needed extra time to complete their brief of evidence “because of the nature of the investigation and the ongoing work that needs to be a done”.
Her remains were discovered in bushland in the Mount Macedon regional park eight months later, on 20 February. Stary said his client had already been under investigation for a number of months.
In March, hundreds of mourners dressed in black filled St John’s Uniting church in Essendon for a private funeral service before Karen Ristevski’s body was taken to her final resting place. “This man doesn’t have any history and we want the matter expedited,” he told the court.
Borce Ristevski was one of the pallbearers carrying her coffin, while their daughter Sarah carried a framed photo of her mother to lead the procession. Ristevski has been remanded in custody and will return to court on April 18.
No one from his family was in court on Wednesday.
Karen Ristevski went missing from her Oakley Drive, Avondale Heights home on the morning of June 29 in 2016. Her remains were discovered in bushland in the Mount Macedon regional park eight months later, on February 20.
In March, hundreds of mourners filled St John’s Uniting church at Essendon for a private funeral service. Her husband was one of the pallbearers, while their daughter Sarah carried a framed photo of her mother to lead the funeral procession.