Killer used victim's hair 'like Christmas decorations' on a tree
An alleged Brisbane murderer used his victim’s hair to decorate a tree “like a Christmas tree”.
Alex Reuben McEwan has recounted his killing of Korean woman Eunji Ban in giving evidence in his Brisbane Supreme Court trial.
McEwan testified he could remember choking, punching and kicking Ms Ban in Brisbane’s CBD in November 2013.
He said he could not remember most of the day prior to the killing when he and his friends went to a driving range before going to his Spring Hill unit to drink.
After he went to bed, the next thing he claims to remember is walking the streets by Wickham Park near Ms Ban’s Roma Street Parklands unit.
“As I was walking the steps onto the street, I saw a silhouette on the other side of the road,” McEwan said on Thursday.
“And I attacked.
“I began choking her, punching her and kicking her.
“She was dead on the side of the road. I dragged her across the road, up the stairs and put her under a tree.”
Asked why he attacked her, McEwan said “it was the demon”.
He said after he had finished dragging her, there was hair in his hands.
“Don’t know why, but I decorated the tree I put her under with that, like it was a Christmas tree,” he said.
McEwan has pleaded not guilty to Ms Ban’s murder on mental health grounds, with his lawyer arguing his schizophrenia made him unable to control his actions.
McEwan told the court he believes he was affected by a supernatural being, a demon named Jazzy, at the time of the killing and is not mentally ill.
“I was trying to stop myself. I was trying to call out help. I was trying to think of anything I could to stop my actions,” McEwan said.
“I was scared because I couldn’t control my body.”
Crown prosecutor David Meredith suggested McEwan exaggerated his psychosis to avoid responsibility for Ms Ban’s death and to spare his mother the distress of knowing her son is a murderer.
Mr Meredith said McEwan’s admitted attempts to cover up the killing, by moving her body and lying next to it to give the impression to passing drivers they were drunk, showed he was conscious of his actions.
“It was Jazzy … my body was his … I was possessed by a demon,” McEwan said under cross-examination.
He said he first began seeing visions of the demon from about grade six and it would give him violent ideas, such as harming others and himself.
The jury heard McEwan’s trial last year was abandoned because he began hitting himself in the head, claiming he did so after Jazzy told him to attack Mr Meredith.
The trial continues.
