VIC: Wife found guilty in hitman killing

AAP General News (Australia)
04-30-1999
VIC: Wife found guilty in hitman killing

MELBOURNE, April 30 AAP - A woman who made a down payment on a $50,000 contract for the
hiring of a hitman to kill her second husband because she was tired of him was today found
guilty of murder.

Susan Elizabeth Freeman did not show any emotion when the Supreme Court jury forewoman
presented a guilty verdict after eight hours of deliberating.

The jury had not been told that the "hitman", motor repairman Emmanuel Chatzidimitriou, 50,
was found guilty of the murder in a separate trial last October.

He has not yet been sentenced.

A pre-sentencing hearing for Freeman, a mother of two, will be held late next month.

Freeman, 42, of Norelle Crescent, Kangaroo Flat, near Bendigo, pleaded not guilty to the
murder of her 54-year-old husband, Ian, whose body was found in the Cairn Curran Reservoir,
near Maldon, on November 29, 1996.

His car had been driven into the shallow waters of the reservoir.

Crown prosecutor Peter Jones told the jury the death had been arranged in such a way as to
make it appear to be suicide.

A pathologist said Mr Freeman drowned.

But Mr Jones said marks on the dead man's wrists semed to indicate he was tied up at the
time.

In his opening address, Mr Jones said Freeman had "grown tired of her husband, the
relationship having soured and had hired a person ... to kill her husband".

The court was told that Freeman paid a $10,000 deposit to have her husband killed and that
the contract for the killing was $50,000.

Susan and Ian Freeman married in 1991. They each had two children from their first
marriages.

Outside the court, Mr Freeman's brother Greg said: "We are absolutely elated ... and to
think it's taken three years to get this far."

"To anticipate is one thing but to actually walk into the court and hear that magical word
has just been wonderful," he said.

The dead man's daughter Clare said: "Our lives have been on hold for three years just
waiting for this verdict".

"It's not going to bring dad back but at least she is not going to be walking the streets,"
she said.

Of her father she said: "He is absolutely irreplaceable. He was my best friend".

She said she knew her father had not committed suicide and had kept up a media campaign to
keep the spotlight on the investigation into his death.

"If I hadn't kept going two people might be walking free today," she said.

AAP sew/ra/cfm/ms

KEYWORD: FREEMAN VERDICT

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