Bail denied in murder case after drowning evidence
A man seeking bail while accused of murdering his ex-partner and dumping her in a river offered evidence pointing to her being alive when she hit the water.
A man accused of murdering his ex-partner and throwing her body in a river has been denied bail after arguing she may have drowned.
Crystal Beale’s body was found in the Brisbane River by a rower in February 2025, hours after a family dinner.
Former partner Jesse Wahlen Beale was charged seven months later with domestic violence-related murder and interfering with a corpse.
Justice Patrick McCafferty on Thursday handed down his decision in Brisbane Supreme Court to refuse Beale’s second attempt at bail since he was taken into custody in September 2025.
At the bail application on Wednesday, defence barrister Saul Holt KC submitted new evidence by a forensic pathologist that found drowning “could not be excluded” as Beale’s cause of death.
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He said the new evidence “dramatically changes the picture” for the prosecution case.
“In a murder trial, if the cause of death is unclear, then that becomes hugely problematic for the Crown,” Holt said.
Justice McCafferty found the pathologist’s opinion did not weaken the prosecution’s case enough to grant bail.
“I do not accept that the (pathologist’s) report is decisive in the sense that it alters the balance in favour of granting bail,” he said.
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“In all the circumstances I am not satisfied there is a material change in circumstances and accordingly the application is refused.”
Crown prosecutor Dejana Kovac opposed the application, saying Beale’s ultimate cause of death did not have to be proven for her former partner to be convicted of the charges.
Beale, a 49-year-old mother of two, was last seen alive having an argument with the accused at a restaurant and bottle shop in Brisbane’s southern suburbs at 9.30pm on February 21 2025.
The accused first applied for bail in October 2025 when the court heard his ex-partner called him a “rapist” during the argument.
Beale had found photos on the accused’s phone of him allegedly sexually assaulting her while she was unconscious, the court was told.
The defence had argued that competing evidence claiming Beale drowned, combined with claims of her prior self-harm, substance abuse and threats of suicide, had significantly weakened allegations that she died by someone else’s hand.
The prosecution’s pathology report stated Beale’s body did not have sufficient algae in her tissues to conclude she entered the water when she was still alive.
Kovac said evidence that showed Beale suffered neck injuries consistent with strangulation were sufficient to prove her former partner’s intent to kill.
She also pointed to earlier evidence that the accused had searched the Bureau of Meteorology website for tide times and security camera locations on the night of her disappearance.
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-with AAP
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