Lara murder trail: Mother stabbed 30 times

Alex de Vos
Lara’s Robert Baxter stabbed his wife more than 30 times during a fatal argument over an affair, a Geelong Magistrate’s Court heard yesterday.
Pathologist Dr David Ramsden told the court his autopsy on Linda Baxter’s body found “multiple stab-type wounds” to the neck, arms, stomach, chest, face and hands.
Dr Ramsden confirmed Mrs Baxter died from a “cut to the main artery in the neck and a series of injuries to the stomach and liver”.
Robert Baxter was in court yesterday to face a murder charge over the death of his wife on August 2, 2006.
Baxter buried his head in his hands and cried throughout the packed hearing.
The court heard a police interview with the couple’s 14-year-old daughter who said she was sleeping when the argument began but awoke to sounds of her mother “screeching”.
“Around midnight I heard yelling and then dad came and told us to get out of bed and go in the car,” the daughter said during the videotape interview shown to the court.
“He was angry and upset about something that had been said or done.
“I asked where mum was and he said she was fine.”
The daughter told police her father’s shirt was covered in a “coffee mug full of blood”. He was crying when he ordered her and her brother out of bed.
The daughter said Baxter drove them to Lara Police Station before dropping the pair at a friend’s house.
“He gave me a note to give them and told me this was the last time I would see him and that he loved us,” she said.
Baxter asked his daughter not to read the note but she saw it contained the word murder, the girl told the court.
Baxter was injured when he later drove his car into a tree in an apparent suicide attempt.
The daughter told the court Baxter suffered depression and had spent time in Geelong Hospital.
Her mother and father slept in separate rooms because “he kept waking up during his sleep”, she said.
“He has good days when he only cries once and then bad days when he cries all the time.”
Baxter pleaded not guilty to murder.
The trial before Justice Jack Forrest was continuing when the Independent went to press yesterday.