Man 'hid dead wife in a barrel'

Fred and Edwina Boyle met working on Cardiff's buses

A man killed his wife and hid her remains in a barrel in his garden for 23 years, a court has heard.

Frederick William Boyle, 58, who is originally from Peterston-Super-Ely, Vale of Glamorgan, told people his wife Edwina had run off with another man.

But her dismembered body was found by her son-in-law during a household clean up in Melbourne, Australia, where the couple had emigrated.

Mr Boyle, who is on trial at the city's Victorian Supreme Court, denies murder.

The court was told Mrs Boyle, then aged 30, went missing in October 1983 from the home she shared with her husband and two young daughters, Careesa and Sharon, in suburban Dandenong North, Melbourne.

For 16 years I thought Careesa's mum was in that drum Michael Hegarty, son-in-law

Mr Boyle, now of Carrum Downs, Melbourne, claimed she had run off with a truck driver called Ray - but her remains were found in 2006 in a 44-gallon drum kept at the family home.

Giving evidence, Michael Hegarty, Careesa's former husband, said he became suspicious after first noticing the container in the Boyles's back garden in 1990.

"It gave me chills and I was positive I knew what was in it," he told the court.

"For 16 years I thought Careesa's mum was in that drum and I was cutting it open."

When he opened the barrel, he found women's clothes, including underwear and a large hessian bag.

Human leg bone

But Mr Heggarty did not immediately look inside the bag and later thought Mr Boyle had loaded it onto a trailer to be taken to the tip.

Two weeks later, he found the same hessian bag in a wheelie bin in the garage of the house so decided to look inside it, the court heard.

"I pulled out what appeared to be a pelvis and human leg bone," he said.

"I continued to look through the bag and found a [human] skull."

The remains in the bag were later identified as that of Edwina Boyle.

Affair

The court also heard from Careesa Boyle, who said she had heard her mother and father arguing about an affair Mr Boyle was having with another woman.

Ms Boyle said that "within days" of her mother disappearing, Virginia Gissara moved in with the family and stayed there for seven years.

The court was also told that the family moved to a caravan park and then to another house during the last two decades - taking the barrel with them.

It is understood Mr and Mrs Boyle met when they were both working on buses in Cardiff.

Mrs Boyle was said to have worked as a conductor, and her husband a bus driver.

The trial continues.