Aussie Mom Solves Problems In Piecemeal Fashion

An Australian shot her husband dead, hacked him to pieces with an axe and put the pieces in a freezer 15 years ago, a Sydney court was told last week. Her son, who was a teenager at the time, allegedly helped dispose of the body in a number of NSW locations, and kept the murder a secret.

His left arm and legs were found at two sites in Sydney's south in October 1992, days after a truck driver discovered his torso near Kiama on the NSW south coast. The remains of Wayne Robert Chant, 47, of Revesby, were only recently identified after advances in DNA technology. His head, hands and right arm have never been found.

Joyce Mary Chant, 56, was charged with murder while the son, 34-year-old James Vincent Chant, was charged with being an accessory after the fact. The police secretly recorded conversations between the mother and son discussing the killing. On the tapes, the widow was heard to say, "I don't know why they can't find the other arm because I put everything there, in the river. I put the legs in one place, arms in the other."

In another conversation, the son said to his ex-girlfriend, "Dad didn't go missing, mum killed him ... yeah, she cut him up and we got rid of the pieces ... mum put the bits into freezers ... the head was put into an esky and filled with concrete."

Defense lawyers say that Wayne Chant had been a violent alcoholic who abused his family. The pair sat next to each other in the dock but did not look at each other. According to press reports, they were denied bail and have been remanded to reappear in court early next year.