As police investigated the disappearance of a Gold Coast woman, a daughter of the man accused of her murder told a friend her stepmother’s iPad was in a river.

September 4, 2019

The trial of a Gold Coast businessman accused of murdering his estranged wife has heard some of his children questioned about the weeks after their step-mum vanished.

Novy Chardon, 34, went missing on February 6, 2013.  

The same day her husband, John William Chardon, now 72, had received a letter from divorce lawyers saying she wanted half of all his assets and custody of their two children.

Chardon is on trial for murdering his wife after pleading not guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane.

Prosecutor Mark Green questioned Chardon’s eldest daughter, Candice Chardon, 34, on Tuesday about her movements in the weeks after Novy Chardon went missing.

He told the court that Candice Chardon had been cleaning up the home after a police search when she told a friend that Novy Chardon’s “iPad was at the bottom of the Nerang River”.

Candice Chardon said on Tuesday that she couldn’t remember the conversation.

But she did remember her father had told her that Novy Chardon “wasn’t coming back until he was gone” and that he said “Novy had pretty much f***ed off and that she had taken a couple of suitcases”.

Chardon told police that when he woke up on February 7, his wife was gone. He suggested she might have sold $70,000 worth of jewellery to fund her departure.

Mr Green has put it to Chardon that his account of his wife’s disappearance was fabricated and he’d killed his wife.

Chardon denies it.

He also denies he’d been “furious” over the divorce letter that said she wanted 50 per cent of all his assets, including two factories, a mining investment and half the company Chardon started in 1986 with his first wife, Maureen.

The jury has heard Chardon thought the couple had agreed on joint custody of their children and he had offered his wife a $3.5 million divorce settlement.

The trial continues on Wednesday.