Earls Barton: Murder accused owed wife £10k before she died

A man accused of shooting dead his estranged wife was due to give her £10,000 days before she died, a court has heard.

The body of Marion Price, 63, was found in a car park in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, on 15 December.

Northampton Crown Court was told she and Michael Reader, 70, of Booth Rise, Northampton, were "all but divorced".

He and co-accused Stephen Welch, 61, of Addlecroft Close, Kingsthorpe, deny murder.

Jurors heard Mr Reader installed a tracker on Ms Price's car a year before her death to "keep tabs on her".

Prosecutor Mary Loram QC said DNA from both defendants was found on the device.

There was "no reason to be tracking someone you are all but divorced from other than causing them harm", she told the court.

Jurors also heard Mr Reader was due to transfer £10,000 to Ms Price as a "financial settlement" on 9 December - six days before she died.

Prosecutors say Ms Price was in her car when Mr Reader shot her dead, having pulled up alongside her on a motorbike.

According to mobile phone records shown in court, the two defendants met up near a car repair garage in Moulton, about seven miles (11km) from Earls Barton, shortly after Ms Price died.

The prosecution said Mr Welch then travelled to a spot on the River Nene in Northampton where he stopped for about 15 minutes.

When police searched at the same location, they found a bag of clothes and toiletries weighted down with bricks in the water.

Ms Loram described Mr Welch as a "willing and knowing accomplice".

"The killing of Marion Price was the result of thought and planning," and the defendants were "quite close to getting away with it", she said.

But, she said, mobile phone records for a second handset belonging to Mr Reader led police to Mr Welch.

Mr Welch, who described himself to police as a "long-standing friend" of Mr Reader, was found with the tracker from Ms Price's car.

The trial continues.