A Gold Coast man on trial for his estranged wife’s murder told detectives she probably fled after “someone has put the fear of Christ into her”.

August 28, 2019

A Gold Coast man accused of murdering his wife told police investigating her disappearance she’d probably fled in fear after getting involved with the wrong crowd.

Novy Chardon, 34, went missing on February 6, 2013, amid a bitter divorce dispute with her 71-year-old husband, John William Chardon.

The mother of two’s body has never been found.

More than six years after she disappeared, Chardon is fighting a murder charge in the Brisbane Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the court heard Chardon, in a replayed police interview, tell detectives his wife had probably fled after “someone has put the fear of Christ into her”.

Chardon said he suspected his wife had also been involved in a robbery of guns.

“Whoever she’s hooked up with, I think they’ve done the dirty on her,” he said during the interview recorded 19 days after Ms Chardon disappeared.

“I honestly believe she … has flogged her jewellery and she has disappeared,” Chardon said.

The court heard Ms Chardon’s jewellery was worth about $70,000 and her passport was found at the couple’s shared home.

Earlier in the same series of recorded interviews, Chardon told detectives he had been “shocked” to receive a letter from his wife’s divorce lawyer at 3pm on the same day she disappeared.

He said he asked her about the letter later that night but she “totally ignored” him.

But he remembered his wife saying words to the effect that she was going, or had to go, away before her disappearance.

The jury has heard the couple wed in 2000 and the first years of their marriage were “perfect”.

It began to fall apart around 2009 when Ms Chardon told a friend her husband was having an affair.

They separated in 2012 but continued to live together while both were having affairs.

Ms Chardon hasn’t left the country, seen a doctor or used her bank accounts since she disappeared.

The trial continues.