The body of 18-year-old Bryan Conyers was found by a security guard in the garage of a vacant house in Windermere Boulevard at Pakenham, in Melbourne’s south-east, on May 23, 2007.

Conyers, from Doveton, had been shot and stabbed before fuel was poured over his body and set alight on the night of May 22 last year.

Matthew Johnson

Matthew Johnson, 34, formerly of Berwick, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates court for a pre-trial committal hearing today, charged with Mr Conyers’ murder.

Prosecutor Nicholas Papas told the court that on May 22 Johnson allegedly gave Mr Conyers $50 to buy marijuana for him.

When Mr Conyers failed to return with the marijuana, Johnson became upset, Mr Papas said.

Johnson and an associate, Timothy Prentice, then drove to Doveton where Mr Conyers was living in a caravan behind his parents’ home.

The pair took him back to Johnson’s rented house in Berwick.

Mr Papas said there was an argument between Johnson and Mr Conyers about the $50.

“Mr Johnson pulled out a gun, a pistol, and shot Mr Conyers in the chest,” Mr Papas told the court.

Mr Conyers’ clothes were removed and his body was wrapped in a tarpaulin before being loaded onto Prentice’s utility, Mr Papas said.

The court was told that Johnson, Prentice and co-accused Mark Morgan then drove to a nearby quarry, but the gate was locked when they arrived.

Mr Papas said the trio then allegedly decided to dump Mr Conyers’ body in the garage of a vacant house in Windermere Boulevard at Pakenham.

They also decided to douse the body with an accelerant and set it alight, he said.

The court was told that the next day, Prentice and Johnson’s niece, Samantha Schultz, took Mr Conyers’ clothes and other personal items to a golf course at Cranbourne, where they were burnt in a steel tub.

Ms Schultz told the court she had seen a gun, which she thought was a pistol, in a wardrobe in her uncle’s room.

But defence lawyer David Drake said there was “no ballistic evidence to suggest that the gun was used to kill” Mr Conyers.

The hearing before magistrate Peter Reardon continues tomorrow.

Prentice pleaded guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court on March 18 this year to being an accessary to Mr Conyers’ murder.