The magistrate heard allegations that one of the two ladies, who is suspected of killing a police officer by running over him with a car, stated, “We ride together.”
The women will now go on trial for murder.
After being charged with the murder of Senior Constable David Masters, Skye Anne Wallis and Kari O’Brien appeared before Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday for a committal hearing.
On June 26, 2021, at around three in the morning, the 53-year-old constable was using a tyre deflation device on the Bruce Highway in Burpengary, north of Brisbane, when he was struck by a suspected stolen automobile.
Wallis and O’Brien will face one count each of murder, arson, and unlawful use of a motor vehicle at the Brisbane Supreme Court, according to an order made by magistrate Peter Saggers on Thursday.
“Do you wish to say anything in answer to those charges or enter a plea?” Wallis asked Saggers. Wallis replied, “No, Your Honour.”
After nearly two hours of legal arguments, O’Brien was also committed to face trial, much to the surprise of the Masters family members seated in the courtroom.
O’Brien was a passenger in the car that the Crown claims was driven by 36-year-old Wallis, who killed Masters.
The Crown has claimed that Wallis caused the fatality by recklessly disregarding human life or by driving the car in an unsafe manner toward the officer.
A jury could find O’Brien guilty of felony murder, according to prosecutor Dejana Kovac, since she supported or encouraged Wallis’s alleged reckless driving, which put lives in danger and was done illegally to elude law enforcement.
According to Kovac, O’Brien allegedly instructed Wallis not to stop when they were seen by the police, took part in lighting the car involved in the deadly incident on fire, and then changed their clothes.
“Something important that Ms O’Brien says when she tells Ms Wallis they’re in this together: ‘you know we ride together and we die together’,” Kovac stated.
O’Brien refrained from responding to the charges or entering a plea in court.
Christopher Wilson, O’Brien’s attorney, filed a petition claiming his 27-year-old client had no case to answer since there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her of murder.
“There is no evidence implicating her in any other way except that she was in a car,” Wilson stated.
Wilson claimed that O’Brien had used the term “we” informally when referring to herself and that, although she was purportedly in the car when it struck Masters, she had not given Wallis any support.
After a witness testified in closed session, Saggers gave Wallis and O’Brien a commitment to stand trial.
Following the magistrate’s acceptance of a police report regarding threats against the witness, the witness was given special status.
The Director of Public Prosecutions will notify the defendants when their trial is scheduled.
Wallis was placed on remand and her case, along with an additional charge of possessing weapons, will be tried in December.
When O’Brien exited the courtroom following the hearing, her bond was maintained and she chose not to remark.
