“TELL dad not to get into my head,” David Clements told his mother hours before he allegedly murdered his father with an axe, Wagga Local Court has heard.
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Clements rang his mother the night before allegedly bludgeoning his 83-year-old father Roger to death at his parents’ Springvale property on Wagga’s southern outskirts on May 26 last year.
The conversation is contained in a statement June Clements gave police and which is part of a prosecution brief of evidence summarised by magistrate Erin Kennedy during a committal hearing on Wednesday.
Ms Kennedy read out the summary as 49-year-old Clements listened and watched proceedings via audio-visual link with the prison where he is being held on remand.
Clements has not entered a plea to the murder charge, but his counsel, Michael King, has previously told the court his client would defend the charge on the grounds of mental illness.
According to the brief, Clements suffers from schizophrenia and was not taking his medication at the time of the alleged murder.
Reading from the brief, Ms Kennedy said it was alleged Clements caught a taxi to his parents’ house about 9.10am on May 26.
She said David Clements did not live at the Springvale house, but visited his parents regularly.
Clements allegedly told the taxi driver he would use an axe that day and chop wood.
He also asked the driver what time a passenger train would leave Wagga, and was told about 1.30pm.
According to Mrs Clements’ statement, she said no when her son told her he wanted to chop wood and told him the shed was locked.
He then accompanied his father to a medical appointment before the pair returned home and Roger Clements told his wife the two men would chop wood for a fire.
That was the last time Mrs Clements saw her husband alive.
Ms Kennedy said about 45 minutes after the last conversation, she went out to call her husband and son to lunch and found Roger Clements dead.
An autopsy found Mr Clements died from several significant blows to the head consistent with being hit with an axe.
About 11.45am, David Clements asked a staff member at the nearby Wagga Country Club for a glass of water and to ring for a taxi to take him to the railway station.
The taxi driver later told police he noticed a dark stain on Clements’ trousers.
Clements bought a train ticket and boarded a Sydney-bound XPT but was taken off the train at Cootamundra by police.
Clements’ case will be mentioned in the NSW Supreme Court on April 8.
