Mark Anthony Vella’s life as a loving father, farmer and husband was violently ended when he was shot dead in his sleep.
His wife, Dale Lee Vella, has been sentenced to up to 24 years’ jail for his murder, which a judge says may never be understood.
“It is clear (Dale Vella) murdered her husband,” Justice Helen Wilson said during sentencing on Friday in the NSW Supreme Court.
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“Why it occurred is much less clear and may never be known.”
The couple had had a relatively normal day on their Murrumbateman property before Mark was killed in August 2021.
Dale Vella had noticed one of their dogs was missing and the pair rode together on their quad bike to find the pet.
They then stacked firewood inside and had dinner with their friend David Borg and daughter Georgia.
Later that night, Vella put a gun to her husband’s right eye as he slept and shot him at close range. He died instantly.
Borg was woken by a loud bang and a knock at his door.
Vella told him to call an ambulance and said “I was going to shoot myself, but I shot him”.
He then called an ambulance and woke up Georgia, who later “tortured herself” over what she could have done to help her father.
“There was nothing she or anyone else could have done to assist him,” Wilson said.
Vella never denied killing her husband at their home on the NSW southern tablelands, though she pleaded guilty to manslaughter instead.
Her barrister Greg Hoare told the Supreme Court jury to find her not guilty of murder, arguing she had a substantial mental impairment at the time.
In a statement read by crown prosecutor Kate Ratcliffe during Vella’s sentencing hearing, Borg remembered making the ambulance call, knowing his friend would not survive, and how it has haunted him since.
“It saddens me you thought your only two options were suicide or murder Dale,” he wrote.
“I will never have another friend like Mark.”