MMA Fighter stands trial for murder
Blood in the backyard
According to ABC News court reporter Ethan Rix’s report, Jasmine Robinson told the NSW Supreme Court that she came back to the Melonba rental property on March 22, 2024, after the MMA fighter Bradley Dusan Fletcher called and said Bradley Evennett had fallen over and stopped breathing. She said she walked in to find blood throughout the home, then saw Evennett lying face down on the grass while Fletcher paced outside in bloodied clothes. Robinson told jurors she shouted, “what the f**k have you done?” before Fletcher allegedly said, “I had to,” and later threatened her, saying, “I’m going to kill you, too.”
Robinson said the men had been drinking, had taken drugs, and had started sparring with boxing gloves earlier in the day while moving into the home. She described them as being in a good mood before she left the house for a short time, and told the court the sparring had initially looked like rough play between friends. The trial has heard that Fletcher and Evennett had been close, and that Robinson considered Evennett her best friend.
Messages before police
According to Duncan Murray’s Australian Associated Press report in the Daily Mail, Robinson accepted in cross examination that she sent abusive and threatening messages to Fletcher’s former partner before contacting authorities. The defense used that evidence to argue the relationship between Robinson and Fletcher had been volatile, and to suggest part of the argument inside the house was tied to jealousy over his contact with an ex. Robinson denied that this was the real reason for the confrontation after she got back to the property.
Her evidence matters because it places her at the scene shortly after the violence and gives jurors a direct account of Fletcher’s behavior in the minutes that followed. It also adds to the prosecution case that this was not simply a chaotic accident between intoxicated friends, but an episode that continued after Evennett was already badly injured. The defense, for its part, is trying to separate Fletcher’s conduct after the incident from the question of what he intended during the sparring itself.
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The case against an accident
According to ABC News reporter Jamie McKinnell’s earlier trial report, prosecutors say the two men had been drinking alcohol and taking cocaine while celebrating the move before the sparring escalated. The Crown alleges Fletcher repeatedly struck Evennett in the head and torso, then used Evennett’s car to move his body and leave it near a footpath in a nearby street. After his arrest, jurors heard, Fletcher told police it was “an accident” and said he had panicked.
According to an AAP report on expert evidence published by the Seymour Telegraph, clinical geneticist Andreas Zankl told the jury he had never seen an orbital fracture, skull fracture, or dislodged teeth happen by accident in the cases he had observed over 25 years. That evidence cut against the defense claim that Evennett’s brittle bone disease explains the scale of the injuries. The autopsy found that multiple blunt force injuries caused Evennett’s death, and that his genetic condition did not materially contribute to it.
Whether panic or intent drove the violence
Fletcher has pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter, and prosecutors have rejected the lesser plea. The central issue for the jury is not whether Fletcher caused Evennett’s death, but whether he intended to inflict really serious injury when the sparring turned violent. That question will decide whether the case ends in a murder conviction, a manslaughter finding, or an acquittal on the murder charge.
Sources: ABC News, Daily Mail / Australian Associated Press, Seymour Telegraph / Australian Associated Press
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