Killer in the Family For - Not · PDF fileanthology Killer in the Family. ... Echo Publishing...

Fin J Ross is a journalist, novelist and creative writing teacher who runs a boarding cattery in East Gippsland and breeds Bengal and British Shorthair cats. She is also the co-author, with her sister Lindy Cameron, of the best-selling true crime anthology Killer in the Family.

Lindy Cameron is an independent publisher who also writes crime fiction and action thrillers. She’s also co-author of the true crime collections Killer in the Family (with her sister Fin J Ross); and Women Who Kill (with Ruth Wykes); and contributing editor of Meaner Than Fiction, Outside the Law 2 and Cold Blood. Lindy is a founding member and National Co-Convenor of Sisters in Crime Australia, and the Publisher of Clan Destine Press.

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Other books by Lindy Cameron and published by The Five Mile Press

Outside the Law 2

Cold Blood

Meaner than Fiction

Killer in the Family (with Fin J Ross)

Women Who Kill

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Th e Five Mile Press Pty Ltd1 Centre Road, ScoresbyVictoria 3179 Australiawww.fi vemile.com.au

Part of the Bonnier Publishing Group www.bonnierpublishing.com

Copyright © Lindy Cameron and Fin J Ross, 2014All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or be transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

First published 2014

Printed in Australia at Griffi n Press.Only wood grown from sustainable regrowth forests is used in the manufacture of paper found in this book.

Every attempt has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright for the images. Where an attempt has been unsuccessful, the publisher would be pleased to hear from the copyright owner so any omission or error can be rectifi ed.

Internal design and typesetting by Shaun Jury

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Cameron, Lindy, author. Murder in the family: fi fteen horrifying accounts of domestic tragedy / Lindy Cameron, Fin J Ross. ISBN: 9781743468227 (paperback) Homicide—Australia—Case studies. Parricide—Australia—Case studies. Filicide—Australia—Case studies. Fratricide—Australia—Case studies. Ross, Fin J., author. 364.15230994

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Contents

Introduction 1

Part One: She Made Me Do It

Don’t be a WimpTina Margach 9

The Best Laid PlansSally Brooks 23

Cold Clues Catch a CrimMarlene McDonald 47

Part Two: A Clash of Cultures

An Ambiguous FreedomZahra Abrahimzadeh 73

The Progressive AlibiMandy Ahmadi 87

Better Dead Than DivorcedRosa Maglovski 105

Part Three: Pity the Children

A Bridge Too FarDarcey Freeman 121

Mummy Loves You So MuchTe Reringa Kayden Ashley Wetere 155

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All Packed to GoDean Shillingsworth 163

The Facebook KillerYazmina Acar 187

Where are the Clowns?Laurell Moran 221

Part Four: Better Off without Him

Greed Is Not GoodIan Freeman 233

A Crime by Any Other NameTomislav Svetina 251

Part Five: Across the Tasman

The MissionThe Ratima Family Murders 267

A Gunman Named ‘Granddad’The Schlaepfer Family Murders 273

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1

Introduction

‘There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the

colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and

isolate it, and expose every inch of it.’

— Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels

and Stories, Volume I

All of us have no doubt remarked of a family member: ‘I could kill him – or her, but fortunately most of us never would do so. Most of us know when to draw the line in an argument or disagreement, when to back off and when to seek help or intervention. Unfortunately, a small number of people become overwhelmed by petty obsessions and can no longer judge right from wrong, even if it’s only for a moment. And it only takes a moment to kill somebody.

In compiling this anthology and researching the cases contained in it, it became evident that, despite all the different circumstances and scenarios of the murders, one underlying motivation emerged – selfishness. Whether it was selfishness in the guise of greed, spite or resentment – or maybe just a desire to be the centre of attention – each of the convicted murderers discussed in this book had only one thing in mind when they perpetrated their crimes: themselves. In many of the cases, they didn’t take the time to consider the ramifications of their actions – their motives were purely self-serving.

While some might be remorseful about their crimes – or perhaps just sorry that they were caught – a few seem apparently unaffected by the loss of their victim. They are the worst kind

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Murder in the Family

of murderers – the ones for whom ordinary people cannot possibly have any sympathy. Fortunately, most of them are behind bars and we all feel safer for that. But, most importantly of all, the other members of their families – the ones they have left behind – feel safer. This book features many instances in which children have been left as virtual orphans because one of their parents killed the other. Not only do they have to live without the parent who has died, but they also have to live with the stigma of having their other parent in prison. Who was thinking about their interests when mummy and daddy came to blows? When reading these stories, think of the torment these children – some of whom are now adults, of course – must have gone through, especially those who actually witnessed the murders.

And then there are the women – the wives and mothers – betrayed by their spouses or partners and bashed or stabbed and left to die with callous disregard. Most of the women depicted here merely wanted a better life for themselves but suffered at the hands of husbands who couldn’t deal with that. Of course there’s also some women – although few and far between – who felt they would be better off without a boring or bothersome husband in the picture.

But by far the hardest cases to understand are those of inno-cent children who have lost their lives at the hands of a parent. Some of these cases hold a place in Australians’ collective psyche. Most of us would recall the chill of horror we experienced when we heard reports of a little girl being thrown like a ragdoll off the West Gate Bridge, or the pangs of sympathy we felt when we heard about a little boy found floating in a suitcase.

It is a shocking thing when love turns to hatred. Unfortunately it happens in many families – and in particular to many couples who suddenly, or maybe gradually, decide they can no longer stand each other. According to the Australian Bureau of


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Introduction

Statistics, almost 50 000 divorces were granted in Australia in 2012 – that’s a lot of shattered families. But what of those troubled marital partners who consider that murdering their spouse would be a better option than divorce? At the time of publication, the most recent figures compiled by the National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) – for the two-year period of 2008–10 – showed that 122 Australians were victims of intimate partner homicides. That figure might seem tiny compared to the same period’s divorce rate of over 96 600, but that makes 122 individuals who are no longer walking this earth being mothers or fathers, daughters or sons, or brothers or sisters. It also means more individuals who are languishing in our jails – at the expense of each and every one of us – because they believed murder was an appropriate solution to their problems.

Of course, these statistics are only for intimate partner murders (intimate partners including current or former married, de facto, homosexual and extramarital relationships). Add to that, 22 cases of filicide (the killing of a child), 20 cases of parricide (the killing of a parent) and four cases of siblicide (the murder of one sibling by another) and 17 other family homicides (grandparents, cousins, in-laws and so on), and the figure for domestic homicides in 2008–10 increases to 185. This was from a total of 510 homicides Australia-wide during the same period, thereby representing 36 per cent of the total homicides.

Percentages varied from state to state, with the Northern Territory and South Australia having by far the highest proportion of domestic homicides among their total murders during that period, with 54 per cent and 51 per cent respectively. For the same period, Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia’s rate of domestic homicides ranged from 41 per cent down to 32 per cent, while the ACT recorded 14 per cent and Tasmania just 7 per cent.


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While some of the murderers featured here owned up to their crimes or were caught on the spot, some were not arrested until some time after the fact and, in fact, several went to great lengths to deflect suspicion from themselves through outrageous behaviour and transparent alibis. One perpetrator even relished freedom for 22 years before he was finally brought to justice. Credit therefore should go to those police officers and detectives who doggedly investigated these cases and turned their ‘persons of interest’ into ‘suspects’ and ultimately ‘convicts’.

The saddest thing about the stories in this book is the fact that the perpetrators and victims once loved each other. Unlike other murders, in which the victim might be unknown to his or her killer, murder within a family demonstrates the worst possible betrayal of trust. It is all the more painful when the victim is a child who should have been loved and nurtured, not resented or used as an instrument of vindictiveness.

But almost as troubling as the murders featured in this book is the way some of the cases were dealt with in court and the pathetic sentences dished out in some instances. Despite efforts by some Australian states to review their laws to provide more scope for juries to determine a killer’s degree of guilt, the systems still don’t seem to be working. Murderers are still receiving lighter sentences because their legal counsel are able to plea bargain for an imaginative range of mitigating circumstances. Victoria’s attempt at creating an offence of ‘defensive homicide’ – originally designed to help battered women who ultimately killed their tormentors – backfired when barristers used it to plea bargain for a whole bunch of undesirable murderers. It’s in the process of being repealed, after it was decided the law contained enough legal loopholes to knit a lawsuit.

In a similar vein, at the time of publication, the New South Wales parliament was reviewing its Crimes Act in response to


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Introduction

concerns about its partial defence of provocation to murder. This defence was being used successfully by men who claimed their wives provoked them to murder them – when its initial aim, like that of Victoria’s ‘defensive homicide’, was to help battered wives.

Maybe what Australia needs is nationwide legislation related to domestic murders, which would iron out all the grey areas and bring sentencing in line with the public’s expectations. Easier said than done, of course, but that might help juries from state to state determine what constitutes murder or when it should be regarded as manslaughter or defensive homicide.

This book also features two domestic mass murders that occurred in New Zealand in the early 1990s. These murders are notorious in the annals of crime in New Zealand because of their magnitude – a total of 14 lives, including an unborn baby, extinguished by two disgruntled men.

In Killer in the Family, published in 2008, we observed that roughly 63 per cent of homicide victims were killed in a residential environment – either their own home or that of a relative or friend. Unfortunately, the latest statistics show that not much has changed on that score. NHMP statistics show that three in every five homicides committed between 2008 and 2010 occurred in a residential location.

So, if you’re ever going to be murdered, it remains much more likely that it will happen in your own home and most probably by somebody that you trust. And be wary of those kitchen knives displayed in easy reach on your counter-top, because statistically speaking you’re more like to be stabbed to death than bashed, shot or strangled.


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part oneShe Made Me Do It


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9

Don’t be a WimpTina Margach

‘No person, male or female has the right to kill another

person because they are angry with them for words or

actions that have taken place.’

— Justice Betty King

It is doubtful that Erin Margach will ever forget the unimaginable horror of watching her father, with ‘this really scary face on’, stab her mother to death in their Ascot Vale home.

Erin witnessed things no child should ever have to see, but she also reacted in a manner quite extraordinary for one so young. Despite her own fear and panic, she was a paragon of composure and politeness while on the telephone to the emergency operator.

The eight-year-old spoke politely to ambulance officers and calmly tried to stem the flow of blood from her mother’s heart with a towel, while her father yelled and stomped around the house.

***

When an argument broke out between her parents on 15 October 2004, Erin assumed it was ‘grown-up stuff’ and best kept away from. She and her four-year-old sister, Bree, could hear their parents arguing in the kitchen, but Erin did the sensible thing and told Bree not to go out there because it was ‘only adults’.


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But when Erin heard her mother scream her name for help, she ran to the kitchen, where she was confronted by her father trying to stab her mother while her mother lay on her back trying to fend him off.

‘I was yelling out “Don’t!” in a really loud voice at the top of my lungs. I thought I could rush over and pull him away from her but I was too scared because he had this really scary face on,’ Erin told police a few days after the ordeal.

In a filmed interview that would later be shown in court, Erin said her mother ‘started moving around and kicking him off her and saying, “Get away!” She was laying down horizontal . . . She kicked him in the stomach to get off and she kicked him in the hands so the knife wouldn’t go near . . . Wherever she moved, he moved, just putting the knife near her.’

Erin said that when her father finally moved away, her mother ‘put her hand on her heart to see if it was still beating’ and then ‘she started to close her eyes and she went all white. And Dad rushed over and said, “What’s happening? I have to call the ambulance.”’

Erin said she then ran into her bedroom and tried desperately to call her grandmother, but couldn’t because he father was already on the line to the 000 operator.

‘I heard my Dad saying hello to emergency and then I hanged up.’

Margach, however, was incoherent and distraught, so the 000 operator, who had heard Erin on the line, told him to put her back on the phone. The operator then told Erin to get a towel and press it down where her mother was bleeding.

Erin told police, ‘Her whole body was bleeding and I pushed down on her arms and her heart but when I was putting it in all different places she was going like that . . .’ Erin exhaled heavily to demonstrate.


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Don’t be a Wimp: Tina Margach

She said her father was yelling, ‘Where’s the ambulance?’ and was stomping around the house looking like he was about to punch something. She said he didn’t listen to her when she begged him to help her tend to her mother. ‘He was yelling really loud,’ she said.

Erin acted bravely in the presence of her father’s frightening behaviour. When help finally came, Erin was heard to say to the operator, ‘The ambulance are here, but she’s not waking.’

***

Paul Jason Margach claimed that he acted entirely on impulse when he overpowered his wife and stabbed her repeatedly – because she had told him she’d had sex with another man.

Margach not only killed his wife, Tina, that night – he also killed any possibility that his two daughters could lead a normal, happy life. He, like many murderous husbands before him, seemed to think that a wife insulting or threatening her husband with separation or having an affair was justification for a man killing his wife. He later tried to convince a jury that his wife had provoked him into killing her and therefore his crime should be regarded as manslaughter, rather than murder. He was wrong. The jury was not so naïve, especially since its guilty verdict came just four months after the Victorian Parliament scrapped the controversial defence of provocation for murder.

Even when he won a retrial because a court of appeal found that the judge who tried him the first time erred in her directions to the jury about the defence of provocation, he was wrong again. He was found guilty of murder a second time, by another jury and convicted again.

***


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If 36-year-old Tina Maree Margach made any mistake at all, it was underestimating her husband’s jealousy. Margach was very possessive of Tina and resented anyone who even complimented or admired her, so when he heard that she’d been flirting with another man while on a weekend away with girlfriends, he suspected the worst.

It was evident Margach didn’t trust her: five months earlier, he had bugged their home phone in a bid to record any incriminating evidence of an affair.

Tina had confessed to Margach that she had been attracted to this other man, but was adamant that nothing untoward had happened. He was not convinced, however, and on Thursday, 14 October 2004, he became more angry and agitated.

Margach’s work colleagues later revealed that they saw him weeping at times throughout the day. Despite their suggestions that he go home and sort things out with his wife, he told them that he preferred to stay at work. He even told one colleague that in the state of mind he was in, he did not know what he might do to his wife if he went home.

That evening, Margach decided to go to his parents’ place, rather than home, not realising that his mother had asked his wife to take the children there for dinner, hoping that would ameliorate the situation. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

As soon as Margach entered the house, he snatched his wife’s mobile phone and dialled Shane Breheny, the man Tina had met in Albury the previous weekend and with whom he believed she was having an affair.

Margach pretended to Breheny that he was Tina’s brother and that he wanted to know whether he and Tina had ‘made out’. Then, in front of his children and his parents, he accused Breheny of destroying his marriage. When Tina tried to get the phone back from him, he pushed her away and struck her nose as she fell to the sofa. He continued to abuse her verbally, until


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his father restrained him. Tina left and took the children home.That evening, Tina and Breheny had a long telephone

conversation without knowing that they were being recorded. They discussed the prospect of leaving their respective partners to be with each other, but eventually concluded that would not happen. When Margach heard the recording later, however, he took it as further evidence that Tina and Breheny were having an affair.

The following morning, Margach tried unsuccessfully to get Tina’s mobile phone carrier to tell him the content of text messages between her and Breheny, which she had deleted from her phone. He then went home – knowing she was at work – and collected the secret tape recording of her conversation the previous evening. Then, while driving to his mother’s, he rang Tina, who told him that she wanted to stay with him and that she would go to his parents’ house to talk to him.

While he waited for her there, he played the recorded phone conversation to his mother. Tina had immediately rung the girlfriend she’d been with when she met Breheny and asked her to call Breheny and tell him that she had decided to give her marriage another chance.

When Tina arrived at Margach’s mother’s house with Bree, shortly after, she and Margach discussed their situation in a calm manner until about 3 p.m., when Tina left to pick up Erin from school. Later, they went for a walk together near their home and then went out to dinner, taking the children with them.

From all reports, including testimony from Erin, it was an amicable meal. However, the mood changed after the family arrived home and Margach went to put the children to bed. Tina apparently overheard Margach asking Erin whether he and her mother should stay together.

Tina took umbrage at the fact that he should be asking this of an eight-year-old and she walked out of the room. She told him


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that she had changed her mind – that she wanted a man, not a baby – and that he should go home to his mother.

That was when the last argument began. According to Margach’s version of what followed, Tina

pulled a steak knife from a kitchen drawer, started waving it at him and then stood at the back door, demanding that he leave the house. He managed to get the knife from her, because he did not want it between them, and may have received a graze or slight cut on his hand in the course of doing that. Two juries apparently believed that was a dubious account and that it was more likely he had been the one to arm himself with the knife. The judge at his second trial in 2008, Justice Geoffrey Nettle, also said he doubted that version of events.

‘On the evidence, it is just as probable that you were the first to take up the knife,’ Justice Nettle told Margach.

Either way, Tina didn’t stand a chance against him, especially when she ended up on her back, with him stabbing her from above. She sustained seven knife wounds on her upper right arm and nine on her left arm as she tried to fend him off. She also had wounds on her chin and her neck. But it was the two stab wounds to her chest that were the fatal blows. One penetrated her heart and lung and the other her lung.

Paul Margach was first tried for murder in January to February 2006, in the Victorian Supreme Court, before Justice Betty King, who said to him on sentencing, ‘The trial on your behalf was conducted on the basis that the issue for the jury was twofold: being either that you had not formed the intent to kill or cause really serious injury; or alternatively, that if you had formed such an intent it was because of the provocative conduct of your wife Tina on that night.

‘The jury verdict indicates that they accepted that the Crown had proved that you had both the intent and no lawful excuse for your behaviour,’ Justice King said.


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She said the verdict returned by the jury indicated that they did not believe that Margach had any lawful excuse such as provocation for killing his wife. ‘That means that this was a killing done either in anger or as a result of revenge. On the material before the Court, I am firmly of the view that it was anger and not revenge. It was clearly spontaneous and not planned, the knife was not produced by you and it is most unfortunate that it ever became part of this angry debate between the two of you. The intent that the jury found that you possessed was only there for a very short time, you desisted fairly shortly after this started, but it was already far too late.’

The court had heard that Margach followed Tina to the kitchen and the two argued and Tina told him to leave the home and stated that she had been unfaithful and that the sex she had was the ‘best she had ever had’.

‘It would not appear that any of those comments were true,’ Justice King said, addressing Margach, ‘but that they have been made probably in exasperation with you and wanting to strike out and hurt you for your behaviour.

‘Your wife also took what would be described as a steak knife from the kitchen bench and was gesturing at you with that knife to leave the house. There was nothing to indicate that she was threatening you with that knife, and you quite easily disarmed her.

‘. . . It was a short, but frenzied attack, and she died from the injuries shortly after the ambulance and police officers arrived. This attack took place whilst your daughters were in the house, in fact a part of the attack, at least, was seen by your daughters.

‘You stopped the stabbings prior to your wife actually dying, and tried to ring 000, which you finally managed to do; the response from them was quick. It was clear that at the time you were indicating that you had stabbed your wife and pleading for the emergency services to come and save her life. It was all far too late for that.


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‘It was tragic that your eight-year-old daughter was caught up in dealing with the 000 operator and attempting to save her mother’s life. There can be no doubt that it will be a trauma that she will remember,’ Justice King said.

‘By your anger and your actions, which probably only lasted a matter of some few minutes, you destroyed many lives that night: your wife’s, her family, your children, your family and your own.

‘No person, male or female has the right to kill another person because they are angry with them for words or actions that have taken place. Your wife had a right to live and enjoy her life. Your children had the right to have the pleasure of a mother’s love as they grew up. Your wife’s family had the right to the enjoyment of a daughter and sister.’

Justice King also made the point that many couples experienced problems from time to time, but most dealt with them in non-violent ways.

‘In our community there is a mechanism for couples who are in troubled marriages, and it is called separation and divorce. There is a court especially designed to deal with this painful breakdown. Unfortunately it is also a very traumatic time for most parties involved in a marriage that is in the throes of falling apart,’ she said.

‘You have by your actions destroyed everything that you ever valued and that includes your own life.’

The court had heard that Margach was, to all intents and purposes, a caring family man who had never before shown a propensity for violence. Character witnesses, who included two former work colleagues and a neighbour, attested to the fact that Margach was an intelligent, loyal and hardworking employee who was often under stress because of the long hours he worked to support his family. They said their impressions of Margach were of a caring father, husband and son, and a good neighbour.

The court also heard expert testimony that Margach suffered


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a major depressive condition for which he was receiving ongoing treatment, initially as an inpatient at St Vincent’s Hospital and later in prison. Dr William Leahey, Director of Acute Psychiatric Care at St Vincent’s Hospital, who had been treating Margach for the 15 months since his arrest, told the court that his patient had been chronically distressed, frequently tearful and highly anxious and had engaged in self-harm behaviour on more than one occasion. He indicated that he did not believe it was attention-seeking but was far more related to self-punishment – which may have been an indication of feeling genuine remorse for his crime.

Justice King told Margach that the court had ‘a duty to ensure that you and the community understand that every woman, indeed every person male or female, has a right to live, that irrespective of differences that may arise in a marriage, irrespective of nasty or hurtful words or even actions that may occur in a marriage, every person has a right to their life. The taking of that life through anger, cannot and will not be tolerated by the law, and appropriate punishment must be given to those who do not abide by the law that values the lives of its citizens.’

On 8 March 2006, Justice King sentenced Paul Margach to 17 years’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 13 years and 6 months. He had already served 508 days in custody.

Soon afterwards, Margach appealed against his conviction, claiming four grounds on which Justice King had wrongly instructed the jury concerning the defence of provocation. The appeal was heard by Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal Justices Vincent, Redlich and Habersberger, who ultimately upheld Margach’s appeal.

In the transcript of the appeal, the justices said, ‘When the application came before this Court, it became clear, for reasons outlined in our discussions with counsel for the parties at the time, that the trial judge had wrongly instructed the jury in


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two significant respects that could have led to a miscarriage of justice’.

Accordingly, the conviction and sentence imposed were set aside, and a retrial was ordered.

Margach must have thought he would now have the opportunity to have his sentence substantially reduced, as he once again pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. But, when he went to trial again before Justice Geoffrey Nettle in late March 2008, he discovered that the court and jury were no more sympathetic. In early April, he was found guilty for a second time of the murder of his wife, Tina.

Justice Nettle told Margach that the jury’s verdict (of guilty to murder, not manslaughter) meant that they rejected that plea.

‘Given the evidence, they are likely to have accepted that you lost self-control. But, clearly they were satisfied that the deceased’s actions or words could not have caused an ordinary person to lose self-control and go on to kill in the manner which you did,’ he said.

At sentencing, referring to the events which led up to the murder, beginning from the end of Tina’s weekend away, Justice Nettle said to Margach, ‘You collected the deceased from the Sunbury station when her train arrived back there at about 8.30 p.m. on the Sunday evening.

‘According to the evidence, you were in a bad mood and you made the homecoming less than pleasant. You were suspicious that the deceased may have been unfaithful to you, and that night you actuated a device which had earlier been fitted to your home telephone for the covert recording of all incoming and outgoing telephone calls.

‘During the following week, the deceased and Breheny had a number of telephone conversations and sent each other several amorous SMS text messages. It appears that by that stage the deceased had started to consider the idea of leaving you and,


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possibly, of getting together with Breheny. She was, however, torn between the prospect of a new life and her love for you; and, after speaking to several trusted friends, on Friday, 15 October 2004, she resolved to give the marriage another go and to break off contact with Breheny. Ironically, just before she reached that point, you came wrongly to the conclusion that she was having an affair with Breheny.’

Justice Nettle summed up the events on the day leading up to the argument and then addressed Margach: ‘According to what you later told police, at some point in the argument the deceased took a knife from a drawer in the kitchen and stood near the back door holding it while she demanded that you leave. You said you refused to go. As you would have it, you grabbed the knife and took it from her because you did not want it between you, and you said that you may have received a graze or slight cut on your hand in the course of that process.

‘I doubt that version of events. On the evidence, it is just as probable that you were the first to take up the knife. According to Erin’s evidence, which I accept, she heard the deceased say to you that she was going to pack her bags and leave and then you implored her not to go.

‘The forensic evidence shows that there was then a scuffle near the dining table, which resulted in chairs being knocked over and, according to Erin’s evidence, at that point you repeated several times to the deceased that you did not want her to go and asked her repeatedly what it was that had changed things so quickly.

‘You told the police that the deceased finally answered your supplications with a riposte that she had fucked Shane Breheny and that it was the best fuck she ever had. I also doubt that she said that to you. Erin did not hear it and Erin’s recall of events was remarkable. It is also inconsistent with the loving way in which the deceased spoke to you in the tape-recorded telephone


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con versations in evidence, even when she was upset. Just as tellingly, it is at odds with the deceased’s repeated candid ly ex-pressed wishes to Breheny during the Thursday night tele phone conversation that you not be hurt. Furthermore, as I find, she had not had sexual intercourse with Breheny,’ Justice Nettle said.

‘Your case at trial was that you responded to the deceased’s taunt in a flurry of rage by stabbing her with the knife. According to the forensic evidence, you did indeed so stab her, at least 10 or 11 times, which resulted in more than 20 separate injuries to her body, of which two were fatal. But as the forensic evidence also shows, only some of the 20 wounds were inflicted while the deceased was still in the dining area. They left a blood drop pattern consistent with passive bleeding from significant injuries at that point.

‘As Erin recalled, and as you later admitted to police could have been the case, you then inflicted further wounds as the deceased lay supine on the sofa, some distance away, while you stood above her stabbing down. That means either that the deceased fled to the sofa after you stabbed her in the dining area, and you followed her there in order to finish her off, or that you forced her to the sofa in order to press home the attack. Either way, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that when you inflicted the two fatal wounds you intended to kill her.

‘The deceased screamed from the sofa for Erin to assist her and, as Erin rushed in from her bedroom in response to her mother’s call, she saw you standing above the deceased stabbing down as the deceased attempted to fend you off. Erin shouted at you to stop but you continued regardless. The deceased was kicking with her legs, trying to keep you away. But, as Erin said, wherever the deceased moved you kept putting in the knife; and you kept on putting it in until finally the deceased stopped moving.

‘Then as Erin described it, you seemed as if to come out of a trance and you called an ambulance immediately, and


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the emergency services responded rapidly. But your wife died within minutes from blood loss resulting from the two fatal wounds to her heart and lung.’

Justice Nettle said he recognised that Margach committed the offence at ‘a time of high emotion and distress, exacerbated by work and financial pressures.

‘I accept, too, that your attack upon the deceased began as a spontaneous reaction to emotional demands with which you were inadequate to deal. But as against that, it was not just a single blow. For the reasons I have given, I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that, however the attack began, it finished as a series of repeated attempts by you to kill your wife which you sustained until she was dead.’

Justice Nettle said it was clear that Margach regretted what he had done as soon as he had done it and that, as soon as the attack ceased, he did what he could to save his wife. ‘You telephoned to get help for her immediately and, although you were so emotionally displaced as to do nothing further to assist, you stood by while Erin struggled to give effect to the emergency operator’s recommendations.

‘When the emergency services arrived, you urged them to hurry and to do more to save the deceased and, when you were told that she was dead, you apologised repeatedly and rushed back to see her one last time before you were restrained. As you waited to be interviewed by police, you were so overcome by grief as repeatedly to be physically sick and, when after several hours you were interviewed by police, you made full admissions as to what you had done and why.’

‘The tragedy which culminated in her death is that you were obsessed by jealousy and suspicion,’ Justice Nettle said.

During the second trial, the Crown tried to maintain that the original sentence imposed by Justice King was ‘manifestly inadequate’, but Justice Nettle rejected that, describing her


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sentence as ‘merciful’. Based on sentences handed down for similar crimes around the same time, which ranged between 15 years and life with an average of 18 years and 10 months, Justice Nettle was not convinced that Margach’s sentence had been inadequate.

‘I accept that a sentence of 17 years’ imprisonment was a merciful sentence. Despite the mitigatory factors which attended the crime, the fact remains that you intentionally killed your wife of 14 years in the presence of your children. It was a serious offence of domestic homicide for which, in ordinary circumstances, general deterrence would be at the forefront of sentencing considerations. Given, however, the range of mitigatory considerations which her Honour took into account and, equally importantly, your present mental condition, I am not persuaded that much more than 17 years is necessarily warranted.

‘Arguably, a greater head sentence would be in order but, allowing for the limitations of double jeopardy as they apply in any re-sentencing exercise, the amount of the increase would not be large. In my view, it would not be sufficient to warrant the alteration which is sought,’ Justice Nettle said.

He gave Margach 17 years’ imprisonment, exactly the same sentence imposed by Justice King two years earlier, and noted that he had already served 1372 days.

After going through the ordeal of two trials, Tina’s family was still not convinced that Margach’s punishment fitted the crime. Her father, Joe Cultrera, said after the sentencing that it should have been ‘a life for a life’. But it was her brother, Steven Cultrera, who had the best advice to men who weren’t coping in a marital situation when he said, ‘Be a man and walk away. Don’t be a wimp and bash your wife and kill her and nearly get away with it.’


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Killer in the Family For - Not · PDF fileanthology Killer in the Family. ... Echo Publishing...

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Transcript of Killer in the Family For - Not · PDF fileanthology Killer in the Family. ... Echo Publishing...