A Queensland Supreme Court jury is set to resume deliberating at a trial for a man accused of murdering pregnant teen sex worker Tiffany Taylor.

March 20, 2020

Jurors at the trial for the Queensland man accused of murdering pregnant teen sex worker Tiffany Taylor are expected to resume deliberations.

The 16-year-old disappeared in July 2015 after allegedly meeting Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, for a paid sexual liaison.

Her body has never been found.

Williams pleaded not guilty in the Brisbane Supreme Court to murdering Tiffany after picking her up from a motel south of Brisbane.

He denies having sex with the teen and says he simply gave her lift to Redbank Plains, where she jumped out of his car at an intersection.

Williams later changed his story, saying he dropped Tiffany off at a truck stop on the Warrego Highway, which was the last time he saw her.

But prosecutor Philip McCarthy QC said he was a liar, who had attempted to flee from Brisbane to Darwin after police searched his car.

He also said officers found traces of Tiffany’s blood in Williams’ Hyundai sedan.

“On the glove box, on the headrest of the passenger seat … on the front passenger seat (and) on the gear stick,” he said.

Mr McCarthy said there was CCTV footage of the car on the Ipswich Motorway with a female passenger on the day Tiffany disappeared.

Williams then exited into the remote Larapinta industrial park, where “something happens” while the car is stopped for about 20 minutes.

He said Williams then drove to the Esk-Ferndale region, where police have searched dams and bushland for Tiffany’s body, without success.

Later in the day, Williams also allegedly set about laying a false trail of communication with the teen on the Oasis website.

One message read: “Sorry I didn’t turn up, decided I wasn’t going to pay for it.”

During the trial, defence lawyer Eoin Mac Giolla Ri warned the jury “not to be taken in by the heroics and technical wizardry of the detectives”.

The evidence they had collected about Williams’ movements from CCTV and mobile phone data showed he would not have had the time to dispose of a body.

He suggested Tiffany may not have been killed but instead gone into hiding to avoid drug associates.

The court heard Tiffany was a “worldly’ young woman who had begun living with a man 25 years older than her when she was 12.

The pair lived in hotels, which Tiffany paid for through her prostitution work.

The jury will resume deliberating on Friday.