Benalla’s Charlie Gander, 19, was killed and his body placed in a vehicle that was then set alight on a remote road at Bunbartha in 2022.
On Monday, February 9, Dimitri D’Elio, 28, of Mooroopna was jailed for Mr Gander’s murder, kidnapping and the arson.
Kylie Anne Stott, 40, of Shepparton, was sentenced for Mr Gander’s manslaughter and kidnapping.
She was found not guilty of murder and arson by a Supreme Court jury in July last year.
The pair had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
A third man, Danny Clarke, 41, of Shepparton, was also tried on the murder, kidnapping and arson charges, but was found guilty only of the kidnapping charge.
He was sentenced to four years in prison with a non-parole period of two years and four months in December last year.
Mr Gander came to Shepparton on the night of December 23, 2022, and contacted Ms Stott to buy drugs.
He was met by Stott and D’Elio at a Shepparton caravan park shortly before midnight and the three of them went to Clarke’s house at 1.44am.
At 5.18am, Clarke used Mr Gander’s Ford Territory he had borrowed from a friend to go and commit an unrelated arson.
He got back to his house at 6.21am, where Stott told him there had been a fight between D’Elio and Mr Gander and Mr Gander was in the boot of D’Elio’s Holden Caprice.
In his sentencing, Justice Michael Croucher said the kidnapping charge for Stott and D’Elio started between 5.18am and 6.21am while Clarke was not at the house.
Just before 7am, the trio went to an abandoned house in Wanganui Rd, Shepparton, where Stott and D’Elio took Mr Gander out of the boot of the car and threw him on the ground.
Both his hands and feet had been bound with duct tape.
The trio stayed there for about two hours, while D’Elio assaulted Mr Gander repeatedly before Stott and D’Elio loaded Mr Gander into the boot of the Territory.
Clarke did not take part in the assaults.
The trio then drove in two cars to Loch Garry Rd at Bunbartha, where D’Elio set the Territory on fire with Mr Gander’s body in it at about 9.39am, before the car with Stott and Clarke arrived.
On Christmas Day and Boxing Day, D’Elio googled ‘Dead body in burnt car, Shepparton, Victoria’, ‘Dead man torched’ and ‘Murder Shepparton’ before there were any media reports about the incident.
Justice Croucher said D’Elio and Stott had “harboured thoughts of roughing up” Mr Gander long before he came to Shepparton that night.
The court heard the pair had been motivated to do something to Mr Gander for “lagging” to police on Stott’s friend Tyson May when he was interviewed about a gun that was found at Mr May’s house.
Justice Croucher said while “it was unclear” how, when or where Mr Gander was killed, he was satisfied that the assaults by D’Elio at the abandoned house had caused his death.
He said while D’Elio may not have intended to kill Mr Gander, he was sentenced on the grounds that he planned to seriously injure him.
As for setting alight the Territory, Justice Croucher said he was not satisfied it was part of the pre-conceived plan, but was more likely to have come after D’Elio realised Gander was dead and he panicked.
When reading parts of Mr Gander’s parents’ victim impact statements to the court, Justice Croucher was visibly moved.
He spoke of Mr Gander’s mother telling of how there was “not an adequate way to describe losing a child in such a way”, while his father spoke of his “gut-wrenching pain in hearing the news” and of how he was “angry his son had suffered to his last breath”.
Justice Croucher told how the sentence he gave was “not an accurate measure” of Mr Gander’s life or the impact of his death on loved ones.
Justice Croucher said Mr Gander “must have been terrified” during the ordeal.
Justice Croucher said mitigatory factors D’Elio had were his young age, that he was of previous good character and that he had no prior criminal history.
He spoke of Stott having been badly abused by a previous partner, and that her criminal history did not include any violence.
He also said she had offered to plead guilty to manslaughter before her trial, and had made a concession to her part in the kidnapping during the trial.
D’Elio was sentenced to a total of 26 years in jail on the three charges, with a non-parole period of 17 years.
Stott was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with a non-parole period of six years.
The 1127 days served in pre-sentence detention for D’Elio and Stott will count as time already served.
It means D’Elio will be 41 when he becomes eligible for parole at the end of 2039, while Stott will be eligible for parole at the end of 2028 when she is 43.
