Accused killer told police of ‘hidden secrets’ before girlfriend went missing

It’s shortly after 9.30pm on a December evening in 2018, and Mark Sheridan Waden is standing in the doorway of his Brisbane home.

In footage from a police body-worn camera, the officer is heard asking about the disappearance of Waden’s former girlfriend, US citizen Priscilla Brooten, who he met while he was teaching Zumba classes.

Waden is now facing a Supreme Court trial for allegedly murdering the former beauty queen months earlier on the evening of July 5, 2018. He has pleaded not guilty.

The prosecution case is that Waden killed Brooten following an argument, possibly disposed of her body in a tip, then gave her belongings to his new girlfriend.

The vision, about 13 minutes long, is the first time the jury in Waden’s trial has seen inside the Bracken Ridge property where Brooten was living before she was allegedly murdered.

Waden is softly spoken as he talks of splitting up with Brooten earlier that year.

“It wasn’t working out,” he explains to then constable Millan Richards. “I was finding out a lot of her hidden secrets she’d been keeping.”

The relationship had started to fall apart after he began a new job in real estate in April, he says.

There were a “whole lot of lies and secrets”. He tells the officer about several things that had affected the relationship, including finding out that Brooten had used different identities.

The officer asks Waden if he can briefly look inside the home. Waden allows him, and the pair walk through the house together.

In the footage played to the court, Waden tells the officer that Brooten had left the property in June, two days after he had threatened to report her to immigration officials.

At one point, Waden points to a chest of drawers, saying Brooten left it behind, along with two plants and kitchen utensils.

The jury were read Waden’s police statement from December 2018, in which he detailed his relationship with Brooten, and his new girlfriend, Desiree Hatzipapas.

Within a few weeks of Brooten’s disappearance, Waden had invited Hatzipapas to his home for the first time, and gave her Brooten’s clothing, make-up, and her phone, which he had factory reset, the prosecution said.

Waden said his relationship with Hatzipapas began in July 2018 but ended three weeks before he gave the statement, by which stage, he was dating again.

He described Brooten as computer savvy and very intelligent, but also secretive about her laptop and her use of a file-sharing platform.

He told police Brooten had a difficult relationship with her family in the US, and had mentioned suicidal thoughts. He said Brooten coul