The main suspect in the 2009 disappearance of Pyramid Hill’s pregnant woman, Krystal Fraser, has been excused from testifying in a coronation investigation.
Key points:
- Peter “PJ” Jenkinson appears as a witness to the coronal investigation
- Mr. Jenkinson is opposed to testifying
- The investigation questions whether Mrs. Fraser was murdered, committed suicide, or moved.
Gunbower man Peter “PJ” Jenkinson told the Coroners Court of Victoria in Melbourne this afternoon that he was opposed to testifying before coroner Katherine Lorenz.
Ms Lorenz said there was a real risk that Jenkinson would be indicted in court.
“I think the seriousness of the alleged crimes and the ongoing homicide investigation into the disappearance and alleged death of Krystal Fraser make me excuse Mr. Jenkinson from testifying,” Ms. Lorenz said.
“I am convinced that there are reasonable grounds that there is a risk that your evidence, Mr. Jenkinson, will tend to prove the commission of a felony or misdemeanors against Miss Krystal Fraser.”
Krystal Fraser was pregnant when she disappeared in June 2009. (Supplied by: Victoria Police)
Ms. Fraser, 23, was discharged from Bendigo Hospital on the morning of her disappearance in 2009.
He was days away from giving birth to a child when he returned home to Pyramid Hill for a birthday party.
The lawyer assisting Mr. Jenkinson, Emma Strugnell, set out the reasons for her objection to testifying in court.
“The (reasons) are that Miss Fraser knows Mr. Jenkinson, yes they had a previous sexual intercourse,” Ms. Strugnell said.
“From the evidence and this research it is clear that he is a person of interest and remains a person of interest.”
Evidence of the key in the phone case
Police told the investigation that Mr. Jenkinson and Ms. Fraser exchanged more than 2,000 phone calls and text messages.
The investigation said the couple were having an affair.
Senior Detective Brett Thexton told the court that “everything” in the investigation into Mrs. Fraser’s disappearance “leads back to the Leitchville phone booth.”
“There were more than 2,200 contacts between Peter Jenkinson and Krystal Fraser that ended in a nine-minute phone call from Peter Jenkinson’s landline to Krystal Fraser’s cell phone,” he said in the investigation.
Senior Detective Thexton said contact between the couple changed after May 13, 2009, when he said Mr. Jenkinson began calling Mrs. Fraser from the Leitchville phone booth.
The investigation heard 19 phone calls between Leitchville’s phone box and Mrs. Fraser’s cell phone.
Police Officer Brett Thexton leaves Coroners Court. (ABC News: Peter Lawson)
Senior Detective Thexton told investigative police that Mr. Jenkinson made the calls from Leitchville’s phone.
“And in his interview with the police, does Mr. Jenkinson say he rarely used the Leitchville phone booth?” asked the lawyer who assisted the coroner, Fiona Batten.
“He said he had used the phone booth around March or April of that year,” Chief Detective Thexton said.
Mrs. Strugnell later asked Detective Thexton if there was forensic evidence to suggest that Mr. Jenkinson was the one who made the calls from the phone booth.
“No,” said senior detective Thexton.
The investigation learned that on the day Ms. Fraser disappeared, two phone calls were made from Leitchville’s mailbox to Ms. Fraser’s cell phone.
Ms Strugnell told the investigation that Mr Jenkinson had been interviewed three times, had searched his property three times and had searched or confiscated his vehicles, hard drives and commercial newspapers.
The investigation has heard that Mr Jenkinson had an affair with Krystal Fraser. (ABC News / Peter Lawson)
Multiple theories
The one-week investigation has heard several eyewitness statements about what may have happened to Ms. Fraser.
Senior detective Thexton told the court he believed police followed evidence from Susan MacGillvray’s testimony that Steven Jones showed him a bag of bloody rags in the months following the disappearance claiming they were covered in Mrs. Fraser’s blood. with stab holes.
The court also learned today that a man named Jason had burned his clothes in the backyard and a woman named Carly had told a friend that the girl he killed was very pregnant.
The investigation was told by a different witness, who was caring for a cannabis crop in Mount Hope, told police he saw Jason miss Mrs Fraser before disappearing with his body on a ledge on the north side of Mount Hope. Mount Hope, known to locals as Suicide. Rock, and come back alone.
The investigation was also heard last week when Mrs Fraser was last seen getting into a red van with a man telling her to “come in, come in”.
Mrs. Fraser’s friend Robert Glennie told the investigation that the car belonged to a former Boort police officer Ray Stone.
But Senior Detective Thexton said police had investigated Mr Stone and said he bought a garnet sedan in December 2009, following Mrs Fraser’s disappearance, and then sold it in 2020.
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