Ross Tighe, 34, told a Supreme Court trial in Townsville that Darryl Valroy Young was at the front gate of a Bogie cattle property when three members of his family were killed and he was shot in the 2022 incident. The dispute over who stood at that gate, and who pulled the trigger, now sits inside a courtroom where one man’s word is being picked apart under the machinery of the law.
Mr Young, a Queensland cattle farmer, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. He is charged with the attempted murder of Mr Tighe and the murder of his brother Graham Tighe, mother Maree Schwarz and stepfather Mervyn Schwarz. The jury trial has heard that Mr Young is accused of using a rifle to shoot the four family members when they attended the gate of his Bogie cattle property for a meeting on August 4, 2022, the fourth anniversary of the alleged shooting.
Who Gets Questioned
Mr Tighe, who said he was shot and three members of his family were killed in the 2022 incident, was questioned on Wednesday by Mr Young's defence lawyer, Anthony J Kimmins. Mr Kimmins told jurors the farmer never saw the Tighes or the Schwarzes, who worked a neighbouring cattle station, on that day. He asked jurors to consider whether anyone else had a motive to kill. During cross-examination, Mr Kimmins suggested Mr Young was never at the gate at the time of the alleged shooting.
Mr Tighe pushed back hard. He raised his voice and said, "he was there" and, "Darryl was at the front gate." That exchange cut through the legal theatre. One man says the accused was there. The defence says he wasn't. The court gets to sort through the wreckage.
The court viewed photos of the shirt Mr Tighe was wearing on the day he said he was shot, as well as a photo of the driver's seat in the car he said he drove while wounded. Mr Kimmins asked about the absence of a bullet entry hole on the shirt and the absence of blood in the car. Mr Tighe replied, "Entry holes aren’t really that big — it didn't bleed that much." He was also asked whether he had made a civil claim against Mr Young for injuries suffered, which he confirmed.
What the Court Dragged Up
The trial also turned over Mr Tighe’s history, because the legal system loves to rummage through a witness’s life when it can’t settle the central question cleanly. The court heard Mr Tighe had a history of drug use and had been charged with possession of cannabis and MDMA as well as obstructing police. He answered questions about his criminal history but was critical of Mr Kimmins, saying, "Scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit," and Justice Christopher Johnstone warned him against commenting on the line of questioning.
The court heard that after one of Mr Tighe’s convictions he lost his gun licence, which he confirmed but said he could not pinpoint when that happened. Mr Kimmins also asked whether he ever grew cannabis or assisted anyone to grow cannabis. Mr Tighe did not answer and instead claimed legal privilege.
Text messages exchanged between Mr Tighe and his former partner, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were also shown to the court. Mr Tighe asked, "What has this got to do with anything?" One message from his then-girlfriend read, "I am stressed about having no money," and Mr Tighe explained, "We were trying to save more money." The court was shown Mr Tighe’s tax return from 2021-22, which stated that he had earned $35,688 over 12 months with the majority of the income from his family’s business.
The court was also shown messages between the couple that made mention of physical violence and a domestic violence order. Mr Tighe denied he had been physically violent towards the woman and denied that he had a DVO placed on him. That’s the state’s favorite move: widen the frame, pile on the personal history, and hope the noise drowns out the original violence at the center of the case.
The Courtroom Machine Keeps Rolling
Ross Tighe gave evidence via video link from the Mackay courthouse on Wednesday. The Supreme Court trial in Townsville is expected to run for three weeks. Mr Tighe finished giving evidence on Wednesday and the trial continues.
The whole proceeding shows how power moves through institutions: police charges, a Supreme Court trial, a jury, a defence lawyer pressing for doubt, and a witness forced to answer under oath while his life gets sliced into exhibits. The accused remains presumed not guilty, but the court has already made clear where the pressure lands — on the people closest to the violence, on the witness box, on the family left to relive August 4, 2022, while the legal apparatus sorts through shirts, messages, tax returns and old charges.
The gate at Bogie is the center of the story. The courtroom is where the state tries to turn that gate into a sequence of admissible facts, one question at a time.