‘I hope they bring back the death penalty before I get sentenced’

“They should have the death penalty for people like me,” Adrian Bayley told police after admitting he raped and strangled Jill Meagher in a Melbourne laneway.

The 41-year-old pleaded guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday to one charge of raping Ms Meagher in the early hours of Sept 22 last year. He then pleaded not guilty to her murder and another two charges of rape.

Chief prosecutor Gavin Silbert SC said Bayley dragged Ms Meagher into a laneway off Hope St as she walked home from a Brunswick bar.

He said Bayley raped the 29-year-old three times before murdering her.

After returning home for a shovel, he collected her body and drove to Gisborne South, on the outskirts of Melbourne, where he buried her beside a dirt road.

The court heard Bayley admitted raping and strangling the ABC employee during an interview with police on Sept 27, before leading them to the body.

According to a transcript of the interview tendered to the court, Bayley began to cry as he told police he could not believe what he had done.

He said he spoke to Ms Meagher on the street and offered to help her but became angry after she “flipped me off”. He said he was trying to do the right thing as Ms Meagher looked distraught, like she was lost. They continued walking and Ms Meagher called her brother, he said.

“She was actually telling me about her father,” Bayley told police. “I was trying to be nice and, and she kept going from being nice to nasty, to nice.”

Bayley said he did not want to make excuses for what he did. “I strangled her,” he told police, crying. “What have I done? What have I done man.

“I hope they bring back the death penalty before I get sentenced.”

Bayley said he smashed Ms Meagher’s phone and threw bits of it, along with her shoes and possessions, along a road.

“I cried, man, and I dug a hole. I’m crying for everyone that this has affected, not me.”

Ms Meagher’s husband, Tom, stormed out of the courtroom after Bayley indicated he would fight the charges. Her parents, George and Edith McKeon, and brother Michael remained.

Deputy chief magistrate Felicity Broughton committed Bayley to stand trial, finding there was enough evidence to convict him. He will appear in the Victorian Supreme Court for a directions hearing on Mar 25.