Former RAAF pilot accused of murder as prosecutors say he staged mower scene

Footage from responding officers, played to the Supreme Court jury this week, shows Crawford at the bottom of a retaining wall in the early hours of July 30, 2024, as a police torch illuminates his face. His wife lies on the grass in floral pyjamas, her hand on her chest, blood running from her nose across her face, with an overturned orange ride-on mower beside her. In a triple zero call at 3.37am, Crawford said he believed his wife was moving the mower because she was worried about sprinklers coming on.

The Crown alleges the 49-year-old killed Frances either by strangulation or blunt force so he would not lose millions in a divorce. Taking into account settlement finances and Frances’ life insurance policy, her death would be worth about $5.4 million to Crawford, the jury heard. “Robert Crawford loves money,” Crown prosecutor Chris Cook told the court earlier in the week, “… loved it so much that he killed for it.”

At 4.27am, Crawford sits at the kitchen table with a grey blanket over his shoulders and starts to cry as Sergeant Glen Thomas asks what happened. Crawford says he went to bed about 11.30pm after studying, woke to find his wife not in bed, checked the house calling “where are you”, and went outside with his phone torch after Frances asked him to move the mower because their sprinklers were due to come on. “All I could see was her legs,” he sobs. He says he pulled her out from under it. In the triple zero call, he tells the operator “she is so cold”, and a pumping noise can be heard as he attempts resuscitation. Text messages on the couple’s phones about the mower have been tendered to the court.

The trial has also heard about the couple’s disintegrating marriage. A year before her death, Frances told police in body-worn footage that her husband had broken into the home, pulling louvres off a patio window after she had changed the locks. “I have forgiven and forgiven and forgiven, I cannot keep going,” she says in the recording. “I can’t live with that any more. I don’t see that his personality is going to change, and I’ve spent 25 years trying to make peace, trying to make it work.”

The court has heard Crawford had a string of extramarital affairs with at least 10 women over a decade, including three air force colleagues. A RAAF colleague, Sarah Woodsell, told the court Crawford had messaged her that he would “still shoot for reconciliation” and not divorce his wife because there was “more sport to be had. Just kidding. I hope this calms down soon”. In another message he wrote, “It’s like a sport. It’ll be fun? Haha.” In the months before Frances’ death, after the couple reconciled, Crawford agreed to boundaries including avoiding interactions with females, telling his wife his whereabouts, attending church and not lying. Frances had been keeping a scoresheet ticking off daily activities, including the days they had sex, as well as prayer, meditation and sharing feelings. The couple’s son Jake, now also in the RAAF, told the court: “I was distressed for her, scared for her safety. None of us kids wanted her in an environment with my dad.”

Woodsell also told the court that when Frances discovered flights for two people booked to Queenstown, New Zealand, Crawford let her believe Woodsell was going. “He did not let on that it was not me. He let her believe it was me,” Woodsell said. In fact, the flight was for Antonia Guterres, a younger RAAF colleague with whom Crawford had begun a relationship. Woodsell said Crawford had gushed that he was “basically in love” with Guterres and they had discussed having children. He also spoke of how he could reverse a vasectomy. Guterres told the jury Crawford had said he felt “trapped” at home and “broken and really struggling”, and that his wife was bipolar and “off her meds”. Days before Frances’ death, Crawford sent Guterres a message: “Ant can you promise me something … Can you try to do one fun thing or something that you enjoy each day.”

Two days before her death, during a weekend away at Kingscliff, Frances confronted Crawford, accusing him of wanting “all the girls [were] to stroke your ego” and calling him a “f---ing cheat” and “a miserable excuse for a human being”. Crawford told paramedics in the minutes after his wife was found of the great weekend they had just spent at Kingscliff. One paramedic recalled him saying to Frances, “Why did you shift it? I would’ve moved it for you.” Paramedics said the coldness of her body made it obvious she could not be revived; one touched the mower and found it also cold. Frances Crawford was declared dead at 4.05am.

The trial before Justice Lincoln Crowley continues, with the jury expected to hear from medical experts next week.