The daughter of a missing World War II veteran has denounced claims her husband killed the 73-year-old for sexually assaulting a girl.
Retired builder Leslie Ralph Ball, who served with the Royal Australian Air Force in Darwin, went missing in Townsville, north Queensland on May 22, 1993.
His son-in-law David Phillips told a family friend he killed Mr Ball after hearing about the alleged sexual assault, a coroner was told on Monday.
Brian Murphy said Mr Phillips - who died in 2015 - also told him that he had killed another man and buried him with Mr Ball in a bid to cover up the alleged murder.
However, Mr Ball's daughter Leanne Phillips accused Mr Murphy of lying when she later gave evidence at the reopened Brisbane inquest into her father's disappearance.
"I find it abhorrent ... that is the most disgusting lie I have ever heard in my life," she said of her father being accused of sexual assault.
"I don't want my father's name tainted by something that is absolutely untrue."
Ms Phillips initially did not want to address other "absolutely disgusting" allegations made by Mr Murphy before saying it was the first she had heard about it.
"I would actually rather not hear all those details again. I nearly vomited when I heard that - I don't want to hear it, it is just rubbish," she told counsel assisting Sarah Lane.
Mr Murphy earlier said Mr Phillips confessed to luring his father-in-law into the garage of his Townsville home before bashing him.
"When he got him out there he said 'I bashed him unmercifully'," Mr Murphy said.
"He said: 'I gave him such a thrashing, I had him by the throat up against the wall and all but got his windpipe out of his throat'."
Mr Phillips then claimed he went to a local hotel and found someone who "looked remarkably like his father-in-law" and brought him back to the house, Mr Murphy said via phone link.
He said Mr Phillips told him he recruited the lookalike so a neighbour who was ever present on her verandah "thought it was his father-in-law" when they went past.
Mr Phillips then revealed the pair took the body away in a truck before he killed the lookalike and buried him with Mr Ball "in the same grave", Mr Murphy said, leaving the vehicle at a nearby railway station.
Mr Murphy and Mr Phillips met when they were Victoria Police officers in the 1980s.
Mr Phillips relocated to Queensland and made the confession after they reconnected again in 1994 or 1995, Mr Murphy said.
But Ms Phillips lampooned Mr Murphy, saying his claim that her husband recruited a lookalike before killing him "sounds a little stupid".
"Where's the missing person's report for that poor man?" she said via video link.
Ms Phillips conceded that her late husband suffered "psychotic rages" but they did not start until after he suffered a stroke in 1994, well after her father's disappearance.
After the inquest was re-opened at the direction of the attorney-general for coroner Stephanie Gallagher to consider whether Mr Ball died and the identity of anyone involved in his disappearance or death.
