THE MAN who found the dead body of Joan Ryther in the front yard of a Logan Central home told a court how he immediately screamed out “help, help”.

Robert Mills, who also lived in Leichhardt St, where the body of pregnant Mrs Ryther was found, said while walking to a shop early that morning he saw what he thought was a mannequin or a doll in a yard.

Mr Mills said on the way back from the shop he saw “a white lady, a white person” and screamed for help.

He said the body was clothed, but her buttocks and legs were exposed and he could see blood on her clothing.

When asked if he called for help, Mr Mills said: “Yeah, I couldn’t stop.”

Mr Mills said he told a next door neighbour: “I think someone’s been murdered.”

He said he then knocked on the door of the house where the body was found in the yard and told the man who opened the door: “I think you’ve got someone passed away on your front lawn.”

He said the other man put a curtain over the partly naked body.

Mr Mills said he did not touch the body.

3.20pm: ‘I WAS PROBABLY THE LAST TO KNOW,’ SAYS HUSBAND

THE husband of murdered pregnant Logan woman Joan Ryther said in his last conversation with his wife of 19 months, three and a half hours before she was allegedly murdered, they said they loved each other.

Cory Ryther said he became concerned when he went to Logan Central McDonald’s just before 10pm to give his wife car keys and her phone, only to find she had not shown up for work that night.

He said it was very out of character because she usually arrived early for work.

“I knew she was having difficulty with her pregnancy, with hormones,” Mr Ryther, 43, said.

He told the court how he drove around looking for his wife, called her friends and went on his wife’s Facebook site to ask if anyone had seen her.

Mr Ryther said he phoned the police around midnight to report his wife missing and at sunrise the next day he drove around searching for her.

He said two police arrived at his house around 7am and told him a dead female had been found, but it was not until later that day that it was confirmed it was his wife’s body.

“I was probably the last person to know. I still had hope she was alive,” Mr Ryther said.

Under cross examination he was asked about his DNA found on his wife’s body and green jumper said that was because they slept next to each other and they “hugged”.

2.30pm: ‘DON’T BE BAMBOOZLED BY DNA,’ SAYS DEFENCE

IN THE defence opening, defence counsel Frank Martin said the defence case was that the accused, Andrew Michael Burke, did not rape, murder or assault Mrs Ryther, so he could not have caused the death of her unborn child.

Mr Martin told the jury: “Don’t be bamboozled by DNA, as such.”

Mr Martin said the DNA of another man, Brett Harris, was found on Mrs Ryther’s sock and Mr Harris’s DNA was found on Burke’s shoes.

“He didn’t know the defendant or deceased ... There must have been contamination,” Mr Martin said.

Mr Martin told the jury to be very careful about the DNA evidence and about times in considering the evidence about Mrs Ryther’s movements on the night she was attacked.

Mr Cash said the presence of Brett Harris’s DNA was an odd result.

He said the court would hear that Mr Harris was at home and not at the murder scene on the night Joan Ryther was killed and had nothing to do with the crime.

Mr Cash said in interviews with police Burke initially denied being in the area of Leichhardt St, Logan Central that night.

But in a later police interview Burke admitted trying to steal a car in Leichhardt St, calling it “the street where the lady was murdered”, but denied attacking Mrs Ryther.

11am: COURT HEARS OF ‘VICIOUS’ ATTACK

A PREGNANT Logan woman was “viciously assaulted”, raped, kicked in the head and strangled after being attacked while walking to work at a McDonald’s restaurant in 2013, a court has heard.

Crown prosecutor Glen Cash QC told a Supreme Court jury Joan Ryther’s attacker “left her to die alone, face down in the grass”, outside a house in Leichhardt St, Logan Central.

“Her unborn child died with her in the front yard of 30 Leichhardt St,” Mr Cash said.

Mr Cash said DNA found on Mrs Ryther’s clothing, after her body was found the next morning, was 100 billion times more likely to be that of Andrew Burke, the man charged with her murder, than of any other person.

“His DNA was on her clothing and her DNA was on his shoes and a bandage he was wearing,” Mr Cash said.

Mr Cash was opening the Crown case in the Brisbane trial of Andrew Michael Burke, 21, who today pleaded not guilty to raping and murdering Mrs Ryther on May 21, 3013 at Logan Central.

Burke also pleaded not guilty to raping Mrs Ryther and assaulting her and destroying the life of her child before its birth.

Mr Cash said the rape involved Mrs Ryther being assaulted with an instrument, probably a screwdriver, which caused massive injuries to her genitals.

He said the strike to her head caused contusions to her brain.

Mr Cash outlined the evidence he said would prove Burke was the person who attacked and murdered Mrs Ryther about 8.45pm, including DNA evidence.

A bandage worn by Burke, later found in a wheelie bin outside his girlfriend’s home, had Joan Ryther’s blood and DNA on it, the court was told.

Police later examined shoes Burke said he had worn on the night of May 21 and found Mrs Ryther’s DNA on the right shoe, as well as blood.

Marks on Mrs Ryther’s face also would be linked to Burke’s shoes, Mr Cash said.

He said that night, about the time Mrs Ryther was walking to work, Burke had been in Leichhardt St with others, trying to steal a car. He earlier had stolen a packet of screwdrivers.

Mrs Ryther’s husband Cory Ryther will be the first of 62 prosecution witness in the trial, which is expected to run for three weeks.

Eight men and four women have been sworn in as jurors, including two reserve jurors.