A newborn baby found cut in half on a suburban north Queensland driveway 13 years ago had probably been drowned, a court has heard. Violet Flora Evans, 53, is facing a committal hearing in Cairns Magistrates Court charged with the murder of the baby in May 1996.
No charges were laid around the time of the death but advances in DNA technology and a public tip-off prompted Evans' arrest in August 2008. Pathologist Professor Anthony Ansford told the court the baby had been cut in half, most likely with a sharp knife, below the belly button and had shown signs which suggested it had been drowned, though the cause of death was not certain.
He said it was likely the baby had been killed before it was cut in half but ruled out the prospect of it dying during birth because it had shown signs of having breathed in air. The court heard that the lower half of the baby had not been found so authorities were unable to determine the baby's gender.
Herbert Moorhouse told the hearing that Evans and her then husband were regular customers at his pie shop in a suburban Cairns shopping centre and he noticed the accused put on a considerable amount of weight in the months and weeks leading up to the incident. "It was quite obvious to me that she was pregnant and she was carrying child," he said.
When Evans returned to the shopping centre in the weeks following the incident he said she had lost a considerable amount of weight but was not carrying a child. Mr Moorhouse said he contacted police after the accused's husband told him police were investigating his teenage daughter in relation to the death.
"I told them it was Mrs Evans they should be looking at, not the daughter," he said. The hearing is expected to continue for five days.
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