The man accused of murdering Michelle Bright “admitted it on tape,” the jury said

A man accused of murdering a 17-year-old schoolgirl and leaving her half-naked body by the side of the road was arrested 21 years later and said he covered her mouth with his hands for 10 minutes to make sure she died. such a jury heard.

Michelle Bright, a year 11 pupil from Gulgong in central west NSW, was last seen in the early hours of 27 February 1999 after being dropped off at a pub from a friend’s birthday party and starting the two mile walk home had.

Her partially clothed body was found three days later in tall grass by the side of the road. Her shirt was pushed up, her jeans and underwear pulled down, and a broken necklace and button torn from her clothing were found nearby.

She had made it home about halfway.

Craig Henry Rumsby, 56, is on trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court accused of murdering Michelle and attempting to molest another young woman in Gulgong in January 1998. He has pleaded not guilty.

On Wednesday, Crown Prosecutor Lee Carr, SC, told a NSW Supreme Court jury that an initial inquiry into Michelle’s death had stalled due to a lack of DNA evidence after it was hampered by wild rumors and gossip swirling around the city had been.

He said the unsolved homicide squad investigated her death in 2018 and created a new police strike group in 2019. One person of interest was Rumsby, who had been living in nearby Yarrawonga at the time of Michelle’s death.

Prosecutors said police taped Rumsby in August 2020 speaking to a group of staffers who pressed him for details about Michelle’s death and asked him about the alleged assault on the other girl, then 18, who are not named can.

Carr said Rumsby told the group he could have walked down the dark country lane that night and stopped when he heard footsteps behind him, attacked the person he thought was following him and knocked them down.