A Gold Coast man who killed his mother just a month after she made him the sole beneficiary of her estate will inherit nothing after his older brother mounted a legal challenge to her will.
Stephen Pike was convicted of the manslaughter of his 62-year-old mother Suellen Pike in December 2013, despite the fact the Burleigh Waters' woman's body has never been found.
Investigators believe the former Gold Coast City Council employee killed his mother and dismembered her remains before distributing them in bushland near Nerang and setting fire to her possessions.
He was charged with murder but convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter following a Supreme Court trial.
Mrs Pike vanished between August 11 and August 30, 2010, a month after she changed her will to make her youngest son her sole beneficiary.
Pike was aged 34 when he went to live with his mother in Burleigh Waters in May 2010, ostensibly to care for her as she suffered a number of health complaints.
Within two months she made her youngest son the sole beneficiary of her will.
Her previous will split her estate evenly between her two sons, Stephen and Adam.
The brothers were estranged at the time of her death, which the Crown argued occurred just days before her 63rd birthday.
A month after Mrs Pike made the will change she disappeared. She has not been seen since August 11, 2010.
Despite the fact her body was never found, Stephen Pike was charged with his mother's murder.
Evidence led from a witness at trial heard during a drunken party on August 28, 2010, when referring to his mother, Pike told a friend he could "knock her off" now that the house was in his name.
The friend also testified that Pike said if he did, "there would be pieces of her in the bush everywhere" and that, "if you can't find a body you can't get caught".
The Crown's case was entirely circumstantial.
Pike purchased a shovel and two drop sheets on Friday, August 13, 2010.
He did not go to work that day and conducted Google searches of bushland the following day.
On Sunday, August 15, he called organised a tow truck to take him to bushland in Nerang to retrieve his car, telling the driver his car had broken down the previous day.
In the ensuing 10 days he conducted internet searches for industrial strength ammonia, butchers' supplies and various cleaning products.
On August 23, police visited his home after a concerned friend of Ms Pike's asked them to do a welfare check.
Pike told them his mother had gone to stay with his brother for two weeks. A subsequent search of his home failed to locate the clothes he had been captured wearing by public security cameras on August 15.
In September, Mrs Pike's handbag was found in the remnants of a fire about 30 metres from where the tow truck driver had delivered Pike to his broken down car.
Following the jury's guilty verdict he was sentenced to 10 years jail with a minimum non-parole period of eight years.
He appealed the conviction and in December 2014 the Court of Appeal threw it out.
Pike's older brother Adam then applied to the Supreme Court to block the distribution of his mother's estate to her killer.
On May 11 Justice Roslyn Atkinson sided with Adam Pike, ruling Mrs Pike's estate would go entirely to her eldest son.
In her final will and testament that made Stephen Pike the sole beneficiary Mrs Pike inserted a clause whereby if the distribution of her estate failed to take effect the entirety of her estate was to go to Adam Pike.
In ruling, she said the case gave rise to the "forfeiture rule".
"It is an established principle of law that if a person is criminally responsible for the death of another, and that death is a material fact in the vesting of property in favour of that person, the interest in that property is forfeited," she said.
In a final blow to Pike, Justice Atkinson also ruled that his older brother was "justified in disposing in any way he see fit" any belongings that remained at his mother's home.
Any proceeds received from the sale of Stephen Pike's property will go to the Public Trustee of Queensland.
