-
Source: Reuters -
Related
A New Zealander who admitted murdering his Auckland-born girlfriend 24 years after the gruesome death in Sydney has been jailed for 14 years.
Grant Mitchell, now aged 62, pleaded guilty in March in the New South Wales Supreme Court to murdering Nella Poli, 19, in her home in Sydney's inner west in May 1987.
Justice Peter Hidden sentenced Mitchell to 14-years behind bars with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years in the NSW Supreme Court today.
The body of 19-year-old Poli was found by a neighbour and her mother after she failed to turn up for work at a hotel in nearby Surry Hills.
Justice Hidden accepted Mitchell was genuinely remorseful for his crime, noting his guilty plea and surrendering himself to police was consistent with that.
"It may be, as the crown prosector suggested, that he had reached a stage where he could no longer endure life as a fugitive.
"However, even if that be so, I accept that he was also motivated to acknowledge his guilt and face his punishment."
Mitchell went missing soon after the death. However, he turned himself in to police in North Queensland in January last year, saying he was wanted for a 1987 NSW murder.
He pleaded guilty on the basis that the killing was done with reckless indifference to human life, during a physical altercation between them.
After the murder, he removed their faces from a photo, and placed two pins in the picture where Poli's eyes had been.