In a battered notebook, a former US beauty queen tried to convince herself life was worth fighting for.
“I am thankful I am alive, thankful for what I have,” Priscilla Brooten wrote.
Weeks later, she disappeared into a winter’s night and has never been seen again.
Prosecutors allege her former partner Mark Sheridan Waden murdered his ex-girlfriend and disposed of her body.
Waden has pleaded not guilty to killing Ms Brooten on July 5, 2018, then spinning a web of wild stories about why she suddenly disappeared from the home they shared in Brisbane’s north.
Her diary entry has been shown to a jury after Waden's earlier trial was aborted when a juror was caught researching the case online.
A new jury was sworn in before crown prosecutor Andrew Walklate on Wednesday delivered his opening address for the second time this week in Brisbane Supreme Court.
The prosecution alleges Ms Brooten was murdered on the evening of July 5, 2018, the same day she quietly delved into Waden’s Facebook account, scrolling through his past conversations with other women and saving copies on his computer.
Later that day, she accessed Facebook’s blocking settings.
The pair still shared a house, but the relationship was over, the court was told.
About 6pm on the night Ms Brooten was last seen, Waden cancelled his Zumba class and made a 29‑minute phone call to her – the last recorded contact between the pair, the court was told.
In the days and months that followed, prosecutors allege, Waden embarked on a course of deception and cover‑up, using Ms Brooten’s phone to send messages to explain away her disappearance with talk of immigration trouble.
He claimed Ms Brooten had left him for another man, she had disappeared, was on the run from authorities or was living under an assumed identity.
"I was happy she was out of my life," the prosecution alleges Waden said.
Waden told friends Ms Brooten had moved out of his home while he was at a Zumba class, but at the time she vanished, her clothing, make‑up and phone were all at his home.
Within weeks, the Crown says, Waden invited his new love interest to his home and presented Ms Brooten’s clothes and make‑up as gifts.
He is alleged to have performed a factory reset of Ms Brooten’s mobile and offered it to his new partner as a “spare” business phone.
The day after Ms Brooten disappeared, Waden arranged for a trench to be dug and work on a retaining wall at his Bracken Ridge property, telling contractors the council was “on his back”.
In May 2019, the police investigation ramped up amid growing concerns for Ms Brooten's welfare.
The jury was told it would hear about a flurry of activity that month after police first visited the address: the hiring of a self‑drive excavator, the purchase of tarpaulins and rope, and trips to a tip.
“It is not known when or where exactly Mr Waden disposed of Ms Brooten’s body,” Mr Walklate told the jury.
“However, he may have disposed of her remains at the Nudgee dump."
Ms Brooten's body has never been found.
The crown case is entirely circumstantial – built on phone tower data, car movements, Waden’s alleged lies to friends, students and authorities, and the excavation of his backyard.
Defence barrister James Godbolt has described it as “conjecture and speculation”, arguing there is no body, identified cause of death or forensic evidence tying Waden to murder.
"How was she killed? We don't know. There is not a single bit of evidence ... that links Mr Waden to a murder. There is not a single item that links Mark Waden to an act of violence."
In a video of a police interview played to the court, Waden said the relationship deteriorated as he began uncovering what he described as Ms Booten's “hidden secrets”.
He said he came to believe she was “living in different identities”, before telling her he wanted her out of his home and threatened to contact immigration.
Within days of that confrontation, he returned home from work and found she had gone, he said.
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