In a 55-page finding handed down on Wednesday, coroner Jacinta Heffey said Anthony Mooney, 46, had serious financial problems and his second marriage was about to end when he took the poison at his Branxholme home, 25 kilometres south-west of Hamilton, on Father’s Day, September 7, 2008.

After his death, Mr Mooney’s first wife, Deborah, cashed in a $307,000 life insurance policy.

Mr Mooney was found by his son Travis and stepson Jeremy Johnson in extreme pain, convulsing on a bed at his homestead. 

He told ambulance officers he had not taken anything and died soon after. There was no suicide note. Toxicology tests showed Mr Mooney had 362mg of poison in his stomach — 30mg can kill an adult.

On the night Mr Mooney died, Deborah was at her home cooking a roast lamb dinner while his second wife, Elizabeth, was on a Pacific cruise with their two young daughters.

The coroner said Jeremy Johnson and Deborah Mooney had been put forward as the two people who could have been responsible for Mr Mooney’s death. Ms Heffey said Mr Johnson was the prime suspect in the homicide squad investigation because he had access to the strychnine and the homestead.

She said Mr Johnson had the opportunity to “lace” a bottle of Coke with the strychnine as he had been alone at the property the night before Mr Mooney died.

But the coroner said telephone intercepts following Mr Mooney’s death between Mr Johnson and his mother, Deborah Mooney, revealed a picture of a young man incensed that he was a suspect in the murder investigation.

“He tells his mother that he didn’t even know where the strychnine was stored and neither did Travis,” Ms Heffey said.

“The telephone intercepts and Jeremy’s evidence, and the absence of any direct evidence connecting him to the deceased’s ingestion of the poison have persuaded me that he was not in any way involved in causing the death of the deceased.”

The coroner said the only person to claim Deborah Mooney was involved in her ex-husband’s death was his second wife, Elizabeth, after she discovered Deborah had maintained a life insurance policy for Mr Mooney to provide financial support for her two children in the event he died.

Ms Heffey noted that Elizabeth Mooney acknowledged in the witness box that she did not have any adequate proof that Deborah had murdered her husband.

The coroner said she believed the likelihood Mr Mooney had been murdered was negligible because:

* Poisoning as a means of murder is unusual in itself.

* The type of poison used is extremely bitter and difficult to disguise.

* The quantity found on toxicological analysis was far in excess of that required to kill someone.

* It was impossible to say how much soft drink would be needed to mask the bitter taste.

* The “murderer” ran the risk of being identified unless it was someone not known to Mr Mooney.

* What satisfaction would the “murderer” get from causing an agonising death if they were not there to witness it?

* Strychnine was such a rare, illegal poison in Victoria that it was unlikely to have been brought onto the homestead from outside the property.

n Lacing any food or drink substance with strychnine meant there was a risk somebody else might consume it.

n There was no evidence that Mr Moody confided in anyone that he was being threatened or that he felt he was at risk of physical harm.

The coroner said she believed it was possible Mr Mooney mixed the strychnine, a fine crystalline powder which looks like castor sugar, with sugar before taking the poison and then throwing the sugar bowl out.

                                                                                                            THE AGE

* For help or information call Lifeline on 131 114 or SuicideLine on 1300 651 251.