Man admits he killed teacher found in a wheelie bin

Warning: Distressing content

A Melbourne man has admitted to killing a teacher whose body was found inside a wheelie bin last year.

Stephen Fleming entered a guilty plea to manslaughter in the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday after he was originally charged with the murder of Annette Brennan.

He admitted to killing the 67-year-old English teacher in Coolaroo, in Melbourne’s north, on July 1, 2024.

Tip workers found Brennan’s body while moving green waste at a facility in Epping on July 3, the court was previously told.

Fleming faced a sentence indication hearing on Tuesday, but the court was closed to the media.

Details of the manslaughter were not read out during Thursday’s brief arraignment hearing.

Justice Christopher Beale remanded Fleming in custody ahead of his plea hearing in September.

The killer only spoke to formally enter his plea of guilty.

Fleming initially pleaded not guilty to murder in January and was committed to stand trial.

Last year, investigators said Brennan’s remains were inside a bin that was picked up outside her home on Hilgay Street in Coolaroo and taken to an Epping waste facility about eight kilometres away.

Police said at the time that staff at the Repurpose It facility made the grim discovery on July 3 last year while moving green waste.

Fleming was arrested almost a week later.

Brennan, who taught English and was a tutor for overseas arrivals to Australia, had moved to the street just two months earlier and was renting a single-storey brick home.

News of her death shocked and devastated former students and members of her church, who remembered her as a loved teacher who had become a “second mum” to many people she taught.

“She was beautiful, loving and a kind woman,” former student Simona Croce said at the time. “No one deserves to be treated this way, no one.”

Police said last year that Brennan and Fleming were known to each other, but it is not yet clear what relationship the pair had.

AAP

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