A man accused of murdering his wife told police during a 12 hour stand-off at his mum’s house in Dundee “I need to face up to what I’ve done”.
Jurors heard murder accused John Lizanec said to Detective Constable Kirsty Watson he remembered “loads of blood.”
DC Watson was sent to the property at Balunie Street to arrest Lizanec after his wife Michelle was found dead in an airing cupboard at their former marital home in Inchture.
She told the High Court in Edinburgh she went to the house at 8.30am on February 14 2021.
She knocked on the door and heard a man inside say: “Who is it?”
”Is that you John? It’s the police,” she replied.
DC Watson, of Dundee’s domestic abuse investigation team, told jurors the man said: “I’ve got a knife to my throat. Get back from the door.”
Lizanec denies allegations he murdered his wife Michelle and hid her body before fleeing the scene and barricading himself at his mother’s bungalow.
Doorstep negotiations
DC Watson, 33, gave evidence on the fifth day of the trial and said she had “immediate concerns” for the house occupants’ welfare when she peered through the letterbox.
She said she kept talking at the door in an effort to calm down Lizanec.
He asked how his wife was but she was concerned telling him she was dead could “heighten his state.”
DC Watson said Lizanec told her: “I need to face up to what I’ve done.”
She said he added: “I knew you would come here.
”I was going to hand myself in to the police station but I wasn’t ready.
”I drove here and parked the car here on purpose.”
DC Watson said when Lizanec asked again how his wife was, she told him she did not have an answer.
She said he replied: “Of course you do, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
The detective constable said she heard Lizanec and his mother Frances Flood phoning Ninewells Hospital and Perth Royal Infirmary to make inquiries about Mrs Lizanec.
‘Loads of blood’
DC Watson said she quizzed Lizanec about his whereabouts the day before.
He told her he had been at his eldest daughter Sophie’s house in Elie, where he met up with his wife.
Jurors previously heard Mrs Lizanec had left the marital home in Orchard Way in Inchture several weeks earlier and had move to Scone with son John and daughter Ebony.
DC Watson said Lizanec told her he had gone with his wife and Sophie to B&M in Leven.
”He said he didn’t remember much after that part,” said the detective constable.
She said he continued: “I don’t know what happened.
“It just wasn’t me.
“I just remember there being loads of blood and I held her.
“I just happened so fast.”
After three-and-a-half hours on the doorstep, DC Watson was stood down and trained negotiators took over.
She said she wrote down what Lizanec had told her when she got into a police vehicle.
During cross-examination, defence solicitor advocate Iain Paterson asked DC Watson if she may have been mistaken about the words she recorded.
”The comments that were made that day were so striking that they were stuck in my head,” she said.
Detective Sergeant Jennifer Gray, trained in hostage negotiations, told the trial she heard Lizanec speaking about his wife.
“He said that everything just stopped.
“He said: ‘Then it happened and I was like no, no, no, no’.”
Phone call to uncle
The trial also heard from Ronald Gallagher, Lizanec’s uncle.
The 72-year-old said he got a phone call from his sister Mrs Flood on the afternoon of February 14 2021, when police were surrounding her home.
“She asked me to speak to him (Lizanec),” he said.
“I asked him: What’s up, John?
“He said ‘Uncle Ronnie, I’ve done something bad’.
”He said he was scared to go outside.
“I told him the best thing to do is to put the knife down, go to the door and put your hands in the air.
“He said ‘I’m scared to go outside because I’ve done something really bad’.
“He said it was not just bad, but really bad.”
Allegations denied
Lizanec denies murdering his wife by striking her on the neck with a knife, having previously shown “malice and ill-will” towards her, on February 13 2021.
It is further alleged he hid her body inside a cupboard, cleaned blood off himself, changed his clothes and footwear and fled the scene.
He faces a further charge of engaging in an abusive course of behaviour against his wife between April 1 2019 and February 13 2021 at their then-homes in Chaise Road, Bridge of Earn, and Orchard Way, Inchture.
The trial before Lord Fairley continues.
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