‘Blood all over him’: witness

By Mara Pattison-Sowden
SHANE Bond’s flatmate told a jury he saw the accused man come home covered in blood the night of Elisabeth Membrey’s disappearance.
He told the court the following morning Mr Bond allegedly told him “I might be in a bit of trouble over the Elisabeth Membrey thing”.
The man, whose identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons, gave evidence in the Supreme Court last week before Justice Terry Frost.
Shane Andrew Bond, 45, from Don Valley, has pleaded not guilty to Ms Membrey’s murder.
The witness told the court he was woken at 5.30am on 7 or 8 December 1994 by the front door of his Ringwood unit slamming.
He walked out of the room where he was sleeping and opened the door to Shane Bond’s bedroom.
“He had blood all over him and I asked him if he had beaten up,” he said to the court.
“He said, no he had an epileptic fit and bit his tongue.
“I just assumed he’d been beaten up.”
He said there was no blood anywhere else in the room, just on the body of the accused.
The witness told the court he’d had no intention of reporting what he saw before his ex-partner volunteered his name to Crime Stoppers.
When the interviewing police officer told him there was a $1 million reward for information, the witness told the jury he stated: “I just told him he can stick his money up his bum.”
Elisabeth Membrey disappeared from her home in Ringwood in December 1994, following a shift at the Manhatten Hotel where she worked.
Police believe she was murdered in her home and her body was disposed of using her own car, but her body has never been found.
The trial continues in the Supreme Court.