Robert Crawford texted his wife to say he missed her on the day of her death

A former RAAF pilot told his wife "I miss you" several hours before he allegedly killed her and staged her death as an accident in Southern Queensland, a jury has heard.

Robert Crawford has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 49-year-old Frances Crawford in July 2024.

Prosecutors allege Mr Crawford caused her death, before manipulating the scene to appear she died in a ride-on lawn mower accident.

The jury has already heard at the time of Ms Crawford's death, Mr and Ms Crawford had been trialling a reconciliation period following a separation.

In mid-2023, Mr Crawford left their Upper Lockyer home after Ms Crawford discovered more occasions of infidelity by her previously unfaithful husband, the jury heard.

On Thursday, the jury was shown months of messages exchanged between the pair before she died, in which they discussed numerous things.

At times Ms Crawford described being unhappy with her husband's lack of effort to repair their relationship, and brought up his past cheating, but on other occasions they shared loving messages.

Both Mr and Ms Crawford apologised to each other in some of the messages and spoke about their commitment to moving forward together.

On one occasion in the month before she died, Ms Crawford said to Mr Crawford in a message that she was in a "marriage by neglect", as he had failed to stay in contact with her every three hours.

Two weeks before his wife's death, the jury heard Mr Crawford returned from a work trip overseas and messaged Mrs Crawford to say "I love you" and "look forward to giving you big hugs when I get home".

Around this time, the couple also discussed in the messages a planned upcoming trip together to the snow which had been booked for August by Mr Crawford.

The jury has already heard the couple were in counselling and Ms Crawford wanted Mr Crawford to abide by certain rules, including undergoing regular polygraph tests.

In the days before his wife's death, Mr Crawford made a booking to take another test in the following weeks, the jury heard.

At this time, Ms Crawford expressed her discontent with Mr Crawford about not organising annual leave for a counselling session, and told him to "own your crap".

Jury shown text messages from day of wife's death

The jury has already heard the weekend before Ms Crawford's death, the couple went on a trip to Kingscliff.

On the following Monday morning, Mr Crawford messaged his wife and thanked her for "a good weekend away".

Later in the day, Mr Crawford messaged to say, "Hey Franny guess what?"

"I miss you," he then messaged.

The jury has already heard Mr Crawford told police after getting home from work he spent time with his wife, before going to their bedroom to do some work.

Text messages sent between the couple's phones later that night were also shown to the jury, which prosecutors allege were sent by Mr Crawford to aid his story about how she died.

At 11:21pm a message was sent to Mr Crawford's phone from Ms Crawford's which said "hey are you going to put mower away soon?"

Mr Crawford responded at 11:24pm saying "yeah" and explained he was dealing with a work issue.

One minute later, he said in a message, "just give me a sec".

At 11:26pm he wrote "you can just turn sprinklers off if easier too".

About an hour later Mr Crawford sent his wife two messages saying he was going to bed and said "stop watching Korean Netflix and come to bed".

In his final message to his wife's phone, Mr Crawford said "hey I'm getting really sleepy".

The jury heard the final three messages sent by Mr Crawford were not registered as being opened on Ms Crawford's phone until the following morning when police were looking through it.