Murder accused partied with victim's mother before death
A Victorian court has heard horrifying details of what happened during the final hours of Zoe Buttigieg's life.
The 11-year-old Wangaratta schoolgirl was found dead last October, after her mother had friends over to their house for an all-night alcohol and cannabis-fuelled party.
After drinking bourbon and coke for 12 hours straight, Janelle Saunders went to bed at 7am and woke four hours later, when she discovered her daughter’s lifeless body.
Zoe had been raped and murdered.
The man accused of the horrific crimes is Bowe Maddigan.
The Wangaratta Magistrates Court heard he'd been drinking and smoking cannabis with the schoolgirl's mother and their friends in a marathon all-night session last year.
Zoe was sleeping in the lounge room while they partied.
Ms Saunders had met 30-year-old Maddigan a week earlier through a mutual friend.
"He was full of stories and he was just rambling and rambling and you couldn't get a word in,” she told the court.
Nobody saw Maddigan in the house after 5am that morning, and only hours later he was arrested, found walking barefoot along the Hume Highway.
The court heard the committal hearing will focus on Maddigan's mental state at the time of the murder.
One police officer said he appeared dazed and his behaviour was unpredictable when he was arrested.
Another officer told the court Maddigan threw a hot coffee in his own face, then yelled, “who did that?”.
On Thursday, a psychiatrist and pathologist will give evidence, before the magistrate decides if there's enough evidence for the accused killer to stand trial.
