Three men have been found guilty of manslaughter over the death of a 27-year-old Perth mother who jumped or fell out of a moving car in after she was lured to a Ridgewood house then attacked and terrorised along with two of her acquaintances.
Leroy Smith, Lucas James Yarran and Ross James Boag have been on trial in the Supreme Court of WA for the past three weeks, accused of kidnapping, robbing and unlawfully killing Port Kennedy mother-of-three Peta Fairhead in August 2016.
Prosecutors told the court that Yarran had asked his friends if they “knew anyone we could roll” and a teenager – who cannot be named – said she did.
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READ NOWMs Fairhead and two of her acquaintances were lured to the house and were robbed, attacked with baseball bats and a machete, punched and threatened.
They were then forced into Ms Fairhead’s car, which Yarran drove.
The court heard he drove erratically and made threats, prompting Ms Fairhead to jump out in fear and suffer a serious head injury.
Yarran went back and collected the unconscious woman, and dumped her outside Joondalup Health Campus, but she was unable to be revived by doctors and died.
Defence lawyers argued the group had been getting along well earlier, but were all behaving erratically because they were taking methamphetamine, and Yarran couldn’t stop Ms Fairhead from jumping out of the car because he was driving.
The trio were convicted on Wednesday and will face a sentencing hearing on June 8.