Geoffrey Adams pleads not guilty to cold case murder of wife Colleen in Maitland

 In the year 1973, a gentleman accused of the homicide of his spouse relayed to the authorities that she had assembled her belongings and bid farewell to their offspring with a rather contemptuous phrase before absconding, as revealed in court.

Geoffrey Adams, aged 72, presently stands trial for the alleged murder of his wife, Colleen Adams, transpiring more than 46 years ago at their residence in Maitland, situated on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia.

While professing his innocence concerning the charge of murder, Adams has, however, pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of manslaughter.

Embarking on his trial at the Supreme Court in Adelaide, prosecutor Jim Pearce QC unfolded that Adams, in a fit of rage, caused the demise of his then 24-year-old spouse by striking her in the head with a metallic bar.

"Following the tragic event, the accused endeavored to veil his transgression," Mr. Pearce informed the court. "Within a brief span, he excavated a shallow sepulcher in the rear of their matrimonial abode, where he interred the lifeless body of Mrs. Adams."

According to Mr. Pearce, the discord between the couple ignited after Mr. Adams returned home one night in November 1973 from a meeting. The accused purportedly struck and ended his wife's life while their two juvenile daughters were in their chamber.

"It was the subsequent morning that the accused committed Mrs. Adams to rest in the backyard of their domicile, having left her on the kitchen floor overnight," he stated.

The jurors were apprised that Mr. Adams subsequently endeavored to mask his actions by asserting to others that his wife had departed, leaving behind him and their progeny because she found it challenging to contend with family life.

Despite Mrs. Adams being reported missing a month after her disappearance, it took a year before her spouse was interrogated by the police. During the interview, Mr. Adams asserted that his wife had been whisked away by a lady driving a Ford Falcon sedan, forsaking him and their children.

"On the prosecution's narrative, none of those assertions held veracity," Mr. Pearce contended.

In subsequent reviews of the case, Mr. Adams was interviewed by the police, and in 1999, a team utilized ground-penetrating radar in Maitland to scrutinize a concrete slab laid post-Mrs. Adams' vanishing. Nothing substantial was discovered then.

In 2018, pertinent information was disclosed to the media, leading the police to revisit Mr. Adams. During a recorded interview, he candidly confessed to the act, revealing that he had interred his wife's remains beneath the concrete slab in their backyard.

He conveyed to the officers that "nice individuals are pushed to their limits" and elucidated his struggle living with someone enduring psychiatric ailments and post-natal depression.

Recounting the incident, Mr. Adams articulated that upon his return home that fateful night, a dispute ensued between the couple, resulting in him striking her with undue force.

Accompanied by the police to the backyard in Maitland, Mr. Adams directed them to the location where he had buried his wife's lifeless form, ultimately leading to the recovery of her remains.

In his defense, Bill Boucaut QC, the legal counsel, acknowledged that substantial portions of the prosecution's case were unlikely to be contested. Nonetheless, he emphasized that the fabrication of untruths by Mr. Adams regarding his wife's demise did not inherently imply guilt in her murder.

"Do not surmise that merely because an individual might utter falsehoods, even deplorable ones, it does not necessarily indicate their culpability for the alleged crime," he asserted. Mr. Boucaut posited that the crux of the trial would revolve around Mr. Adams' intent at the moment his wife met her demise.