Just days before she was allegedly killed by her Royal Australian Air Force pilot husband, Frances Crawford confronted him about his repeated affairs and relationships, and interstate and overseas flights he had booked for other women, a court has been told.
Robert Crawford, 49, has pleaded not guilty to killing his wife in July 2024, and staging her death to look like a lawn mower accident at their 100-acre property in Upper Lockyer, south-east Queensland.
On the prosecution case, the pilot was a “love rat” who lived a double life, and killed his wife so he would not lose millions of dollars in a divorce.
Frances Crawford’s body was found near a ride-on lawn mower at the bottom of a retaining wall on their property. Her husband is alleged to have killed her through strangulation or blunt force trauma to the head.
Infidelity in the Crawford marriage
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court in Brisbane heard from prosecutors that Robert Crawford had several affairs during the marriage, including with another pilot between 2020 and 2022, a real estate agent in 2023, a WA teacher he met on dating website eHarmony in 2023, and with another RAAF colleague from 2023.
The accused was dishonest with his wife about his infidelity, the prosecutors told the court, telling her he was away on work trips or staying on the RAAF base at Amberley, south-west of Brisbane. He would delete messages and book flights for other women, both interstate and overseas, the court heard.
After travelling to Italy for a work trip, he began a relationship with a colleague in their squadron. On another work trip to the Solomon Islands, they were intimate for the first time, the court heard.
He visited the woman’s Brisbane home most weeks during the two-year relationship.
In mid-2023, he began another relationship with a RAAF colleague. He booked return flights to Queenstown for the woman, but later cancelled the flight.
Later that year, when he had moved out of the family home he shared with his wife, he began a relationship with a buyer’s agent he met while moving into a rental property. He moved into the rental property with help from the second RAAF colleague, the court heard.
Days later, in October 2023, he started to chat with a woman in Western Australia on eHarmony. Around that time, he had sex with the buyer’s agent. The Perth woman travelled to visit him, and the buyer’s agent ended the relationship soon after.
When the Perth woman returned home, she asked for her money to reimbursed, but Robert Crawford did not respond, and blocked her.
There were a series of other infidelities in admissions to the court, which included a physical encounter, but not sex, during a leadership event in Wagga Wagga, a sexual relationship during a training exercise in Japan, sex with a nurse in 2018 where he contracted a sexually transmitted disease, and sex with a friend.
He was dishonest about the STD, telling Frances he contracted it from using a public toilet, the court heard.
The defence case
The defence said an officer on the scene had attended “a so-called DV incident” a year earlier involving the accused.
He told his colleagues that Robert Crawford broke in with an axe, leaving his wife “cowering in her room”, in an incident described as having “all the red flags for domestic violence”.
The officer’s comments coloured other police officers’ perceptions of her death and led to a “close-minded” investigation, the defence said.
Defence barrister Saul Holt said the scene could not be explained as staged, and instead the death was a tragic accident.
He said mower rollovers were not uncommon, and that Frances Crawford had been out moving the machine after repeatedly asking her husband to do it.
The prosecution labelled the events leading up to Frances Crawford’s death a “perfect storm”. In response, Holt showed the jury messages sent between the pair in the days before the death.
The weekend before her death, on July 27, 2024, the pair travelled to Kingscliff in northern NSW, where the prosecution says they argued over messaging app Signal.
The jury were shown CCTV of the pair near the Peppers Resort, and their messages to each other, which included Frances Crawford writing: “I could see in your eyes that you have no empathy. They are just cold.”
When he asked to meet to talk while he was at a park, she responded: “So you can say you were miserable? You are a miserable excuse for a human being. A f---ing cheat!”
She also wrote: “All those girls to stroke your ego.”
Holt said the argument eventually resolved.
Holt said the best account of what was going on in their lives was what they said to each other, highlighting several messages between the pair. Robert Crawford had messaged at other times saying: “Hey Franny, guess what? I miss you.”
Holt said Frances Crawford had a call with her son on the night of her death. From about 9.15pm, Robert Crawford dealt with a work issue, making calls to others on the RAAF base.
Holt said his client’s account had remained the same since the death – that he woke, saw his wife was not in bed, searched the property, and found her under the mower. He managed to pull her out, effectively 90 degrees from the mower.
He said when the mower was found, the wheel was hard turned to the right, the brake was off, and it was in reverse.
Holt said the prosecution’s case that his client was motivated by his love for money was “a headline”, and “not evidence”. He said both Frances and Robert Crawford were concerned about the financial implications of divorce, which was typical of separating couples.
“The defence case is that this was not murder, not by Robert Crawford, and not by anyone else,” he said.
The trial before Justice Lincoln Crowley continues.
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