Moe barista pleads guilty to manslaughter of seven-foot cyclist in Victoria Supreme Court, Melbourne
>
A young woman accused of murdering a seven-foot-tall Moe man has pleaded guilty to manslaughter after prosecutors agreed she didn’t know he was going to be killed.
Barista Samantha Guillerme had long claimed that Jarrad Lovison, who was last seen riding a bicycle on April 16, 2019, would simply be beaten when he was allegedly lured to his death in Victoria Country.
On Wednesday, the Victorian High Court heard that Guillerme will now act as a prosecution witness in the upcoming murder trials of her ex-boyfriend Jake Brown, 28, and his partner Andrew Price, 47.
Barista Samantha Grace Guillerme (pictured) was charged with murdering a Moe man
The body of Moe’s man, Jarrad Lovison (left), was found in May of last year, a month after he went missing.
Daily Mail Australia can reveal Guillerme, 25, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge last month and will face a pre-sentence hearing on Monday.
She has been free in the community since September, when now-retired Judge Paul Coghlan accepted that the expected two-year wait to bring her to trial was not in the interest of justice.
In granting bail, Judge Coghlan suggested that the police probably had a stronger case against Guillerme for manslaughter than for murder.
Crown prosecutor Andrew Grant argued at the time that prosecutors had a “strong circumstantial case” against Guillerme.
“But not for murder,” Judge Coghlan said.
“If she can’t be directly connected (to a plot to kill Mr. Lovison), then it can’t be shown that she was part of a deal that he would be kidnapped for the purpose of killing him.” As (her lawyer for her) has rightly pointed out, it’s not a solid murder case.
During his bail hearing then, the court heard Guillerme believed that Mr. Lovison would just ‘kick it’ when he allegedly lured him into a meeting with his Brown and Price.
Guillerme was arrested after police searched a property in Moe and took her into custody. She was later released on bail.
The Instagram post of accused murderer Samantha Grace Guillerme (pictured above)
Samantha Grace Guillerme (pictured above) pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Jarrad Lovison
Brown and Price, both from Moe, will contest the murder charges next year.
Police had initially alleged that the three planned to kill Lovison by forcing him to overdose on gamma hydroxybutyrate, the deadly drug known as GHB.
Police alleged that Lovison met his fate amid “rising tensions” between him and Price.
Seven foot tall Lovison was last seen riding his bike near Moe in Victorian Country on April 16, 2019.
The following day, Guillerme shared a photo on his social media page of his dog on the Lyrebird Forest Walk, around 60km south of Moondarra.
Next to the photo, he wrote the caption ‘today’s adventure’.
The court heard that she had only returned to the area to help her co-defendant search for CCTV cameras in case they had been seen.
Mr. Lovison’s body was found on May 23 of that year in the same area.
The police had objected to the bail at the time because they feared that Guillerme would try to interfere with a key witness in the trial and commit more crimes.
The court heard that Guillerme had prior convictions for drug trafficking and robbery, as well as an appalling driving record.
She had been under police surveillance in the months leading up to her arrest when police allegedly caught her on a wiretapped phone call telling a colleague to watch the witness.
Lovison was last seen at Moe’s, Latrobe Valley. He was allegedly killed over “rising tensions” with Andrew Price
Samantha Grace Guillerme had been released on bail to live with her parents
Jarrad Lovison, 38, went missing in mid-April 2019, but his remains were discovered by detectives in Moondarra, near Moe, in Victoria’s Gippsland region.
Guillerme allegedly told the man that the witness was only alive due to “the heat” that she and her companions were under police.
She was later caught on a prison phone allegedly admitting her role in the alleged crime, telling someone she believed Mr Lovison would only get “a good kick”, the court heard.
When police arrested her in October of that year, they allege she deleted a series of messages with Lovison.
In July, detectives allegedly intercepted a call in which the alleged killer asked her boyfriend to “burn” a former employer.
The court heard that Brown suggested that he stab his boss in the neck with a ballpoint pen when he went to collect his belongings.
Guillerme reportedly agreed, saying he would keep the pen as a “souvenir” of the killing.
She will be forced to face her victim’s family and friends when she returns to court next week.