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A jury has rejected a former motorcyclist’s claims that he was just an innocent bystander witnessing the brutal death of a Sydney woman whose body was found burned in the bush.
Namja Carroll, 33, was murdered on July 14, 2020, and her body was discovered 15 days later by a hiker hiking in the Sandy Point area.
A jury found one of his killers, Benjamin Troy Parkes, guilty of murder on Wednesday after a six-week trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court.
The 46-year-old argued unsuccessfully that a man he sold drugs with, Robert Sloan, was the one who beat Carroll and tried to dispose of his body by dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire.
Namja Carroll (pictured), was murdered on July 14, 2020 and her body was discovered 15 days later by a hiker hiking in the Sandy Point area.
An anthropologist who examined his badly burned body discovered his skull was broken into 62 fragments consistent with blunt force trauma, the court heard.
Parkes, Sloan and Carroll met while staying at the Hunts Hotel in Liverpool, south-west of Sydney.
In February, as the trial began, Crown prosecutor Darren Robinson told jurors that Ms Carroll had “invested” $8,000 in her illegal drugs business using her pension.
The jury heard that Parkes was concerned Mrs Carroll “knew too much” about his drugs business and struck a deal with Sloan to kill her.
A jury has rejected a former cyclist’s claims that he was just an innocent bystander witnessing the brutal death of a Sydney woman whose body was found burned in the bush (pictured).
The jury heard Parkes was concerned Carroll (pictured) “knew too much” about his drugs business and struck a deal with Sloan to kill her.
Robinson told jurors the couple arranged to take her from the Hunts Hotel to an acquaintance’s home in Smithfield, where she stayed in his garage before she was murdered.
Parkes denied his intention was to murder and said he arrived at the Sandy Point site with a can of petrol to set fire to Carroll’s van over fears it could be linked to his drug business.
He will face a sentencing hearing on May 24.