Daniel Morcombe’s accused killer must be guilty, jury told
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Version 0 of 1. Prosecutors have urged jurors to convict the man accused of Daniel Morcombe’s murder because he confessed to the crime and knew where the boy’s remains were. Prosecutor Michael Byrne says there’s no alternative evidence to explain how Brett Peter Cowan, 44, knew where Daniel’s body and clothing were. “He knew where these things were because he was the one who killed Daniel Morcombe and put them there,” Byrne told the supreme court in Brisbane on Monday. Cowan’s trial is drawing to a close after four weeks of evidence, including a secretly recorded conversation in which he admitted snapping Daniel’s neck while trying to molest him at an isolated property. Cowan has pleaded not guilty to murder, indecent treatment of a child and interfering with a corpse. His defence team has argued Cowan made a false confession to undercover police, who were masquerading as members of a criminal gang. Jurors have been told Cowan made the false confession in the hope of making $100,000 as part of a “big job” the fake criminal gang was planning. On Monday Byrne said Cowan had repeatedly confessed to the crime, although he’d denied it during formal interviews with police. He said that was because Cowan was more likely to tell the truth to his “purported friends” rather than police officers. Daniel vanished from an unofficial bus stop under the Kiel Mountain Road overpass in the Sunshine Coast hinterland on the afternoon of December 7, 2003. His remains were found in nearby bushland in August 2011, along with remnants of clothing. The trial continues. |