A JEALOUS husband killed his nephew for having an affair with his wife after sending her a chilling message saying: “God will punish you,” a court heard.
The murderer shot his 23-year-old victim seven times, including through his eye, brain and heart with a .22 calibre handgun.
His body was found slumped on the blood-spattered tiled entrance of the house he was staying in with his car keys still in his hand, reports news.com.au.
Today, the slain man’s 51-year-old uncle – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was jailed for 32 years for the the 2015 murder, which happened shortly before midnight in Sydney’s southwest.
Three hours before the shooting, the murderer sent his wife several text messages, including one that read: “God will punish you”.
He also sent some to her that evening which were directed at his nephew, such as “I trusted you with my wife and children” and “I forgot that you are a bastard”, the court heard.
When a NSW Supreme Court jury found him guilty in July, he spat at them and called them “pigs”.
At the trial, Justice Peter Johnson said the shooting was not a “spontaneous response” to a sudden occurrence, rather the relationship had been “on foot for some time”.
Sexual jealousy does not operate to mitigate the offender’s carefully premeditated murder
Justice Peter Johnson
The judge said: “The offender’s emotions continued to boil for a period with him hatching a plan to kill the victim, having undertaken by various means to discover his place of residence.
“Sexual jealousy does not operate to mitigate the offender’s carefully premeditated murder.”
The married couple were not close and had slept in separate bedrooms, the court heard.
In the fortnight before the death, the killer sent a “large number” of strongly-worded text messages to his wife and nephew, some of which had highly sexual content.
The judge today said some of those messages “convey the tone and content of the offender’s thought processes”.
He said they revealed the man’s firm belief that they “were engaged in a sexual relationship”.
On April 15, 2015, the man sent a text to his wife that said: “I cannot take it any more and I fear I will get carried away.”
One week later, he said: “I am devastated and stepped over and I shall regain my dignity”.
Justice Johnson said today he was satisfied the victim and his aunt “rendezvoused” at a location in southwest Sydney on the evening of the shooting.
The pair parted ways but the victim had a seven-minute phone call with his aunt from his vehicle before he returned home and was gunned down.
“Forensic evidence adduced at the trial confirmed the existence of a sexual relationship between the victim and the offender’s wife,” Justice Johnson said.
“This was a crime of murder of marked objective gravity.
“A young man was brutally murdered as a result of the offender’s wounded feelings and sense of dishonour, and his obsessive and controlling conduct towards his wife.”
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