Bradley Bell ‘played along’ with boss’s plan to kill Kelly Wilkinson because he needed the job, murder trial hears

A man told police he “played along” with a plan of his boss to tie up and set his wife on fire because he needed the job, a jury has heard.
Bradley Bell, of Pimpama, faced the Brisbane supreme court on Tuesday for the second day of his trial after pleading not guilty to the murder of Kelly Wilkinson, 27, on 20 April 2021.
The 29-year-old is accused of murdering Wilkinson by aiding her estranged husband, Brian Earl Johnston, 37, by driving him to her Gold Coast home after buying a 20-litre can of petrol together.
The jury was shown a video of a formal interview Bell had with detectives on 20 July 2021 in which he said Johnston “mentioned multiple times how he wanted to kill Kelly” and “tie her up and burn her”.
Bell told Det Sgt David Moore and Det Sen Const Prue Donald he did not challenge Wilkinson when he made those types of comments up to 15 times a day.
He said this was because he was homeless after attempting to find mining work in remote Queensland.
“I needed to work. I was [camping rough] in the bush. I had just lost my licence. He’s my boss,” Bell said.
He said he accepted an offer of $1,000 from Johnston to drive him around and now felt “taken advantage of”.
“We just played along with it. Looking back I shouldn’t have played along as soon as he mentioned killing,” he said.
The jury was shown CCTV footage said to show Bell driving Johnston to a service station just after 3am on the day Wilkinson was killed and removing a red jerry can from the boot before filling it with petrol. Bell entered the station to pay for the fuel and buy iced tea and an energy drink with cash from Johnston, who stayed inside Bell’s Nissan Pulsar sedan.
Bell told detectives it “sounds bad” but he never thought Johnston would go through with his plan to kill Wilkinson.
“I knew his intentions but I didn’t think he was going to follow up. I was getting $1,000 out of it and he was my boss and I needed that job. I rolled with it,” Bell said.
When Donald asked him why he had been thinking about that early morning drive for the past three months.
“I know I was the one who could have stopped it all. Stopped the whole fucking thing,” Bell said.
He admitted his previous statement was wrong and he did not stop at the petrol station to fill up his car but because Johnston said “don’t forget, we need to fill the jerry can up”.
Defence barrister Edwin Whitton asked Moore if he had “buttered up” Bell with cigarettes before the interview to make sure he did not use his right to silence or legal representation.
“I don’t accept that,” Moore said.
The trial continues before Justice Michael Copley.