Murder accused John Lizanec has denied moving his wife’s body into an airing cupboard after she died at their home in Inchture with wounds to her neck.
Lizanec, 49, is accused of killing wife Michelle and hiding her body in the closet before fleeing to Dundee.
Giving evidence in his own defence for a second day, he told a jury he tried to stop Michelle taking a knife to her own throat but she died in his arms.
On the eighth day of his trial, Lizanec said he did not then move his wife’s body into the bathroom airing cupboard.
“I never put her in the cupboard,” Lizanec told advocate depute Shanti Maguire during a cross-examination of his evidence.
“She was in the cupboard already. I didn’t move her.
“I remember laying my wife down in the only space there was, next to the hoover.
“That’s where she cut herself.”
Asked why he did not call 999, he replied: “I’ve never been in a situation like that before.
“I was in shock – I think anyone would have been in shock.”
Gas meter reading
He said he and his wife had driven back to their former marital home at Orchard Way, Inchture at around 8.20pm on February 13 2021.
Lizanec said his wife went to check the gas meter, before telling him they needed gas and asked him to text their son Jon.
The teenager, then 16, received a text from his father at 9.11pm, saying they were going into Dundee for gas.
Ms Maguire showed an image of the gas meter reading, with a balance of just over £117.
“If there was plenty of money in the meter, why would she tell you you needed to go and get gas?” the advocate depute asked.
“I don’t know,” said Lizanec.
“Did you send that message to Jon after Michelle had died to buy yourself more time?” Ms Maquire asked.
“No, I texted my son because my wife told me to.”
Tended his own cut
Lizanec told the court he was in the kitchen when he heard a noise from his wife in the bathroom.
It was a noise “as if she had hurt herself,” he said.
He told the court he went into the bathroom and saw his wife standing upright.
He said he saw blood on the floor and his wife taking “something silver” towards her own neck.
From behind, he held her front with his left arm and tried to grab the knife with his right.
“I was trying to stop her doing what she was doing,” he said.
He said he received a cut on his left arm as he tried to intervene.
After placing his wife’s body on the floor of the cupboard, he stripped out of his clothes and footwear and used plasters to tend to a cut on his forearm.
He said he cannot remember closing the closet door.
“Would that not be a very callous thing to have done?” asked the advocate depute.
He replied: “It wouldn’t have been a very nice thing to do but I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Asked what he thought would next happen to his wife, he said: “I wasn’t thinking.”
Ms Maguire: “Is that because you inflicted that injury on her?”
Lizanec: “I could never have done that.”
Ms Maguire: “Even though you had threatened to?”
Lizanec: “I never threatened her.”
Ms Maguire: “If there’s any truth in your account, would you not be frantically phoning your children?”
Lizanec replied: “I had never been in that situation before.”
He said he then changed into fresh clothes – including a brand new pair of trainers – and drove to his mother’s home in Dundee.
Allegations
Lizanec denies murdering his wife by striking her on the neck with a knife, having previously shown “malice and ill-will” towards her, on February 13 2021.
It is further alleged he hid her body inside a cupboard, cleaned blood off himself, changed his clothes and footwear and fled the scene.
He faces a further charge of engaging in an abusive course of behaviour against his wife between April 1 2019 and February 13 2021 at their then-homes in Chaise Road, Bridge of Earn, and Orchard Way, Inchture.
And it is alleged he behaved in a threatening or abusive way at his mother’s house in Balunie Street, Dundee, by barricading himself inside while armed with a knife on February 14.
The trial before Lord Fairley continues.
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