WARNING: Distressing content
A man who brutally murdered a rough sleeper with a rock and slashed a fellow prison inmate’s throat will spend the next quarter-century behind bars, after avoiding a life sentence.
Kevin James Pettiford was sentenced to 39 years in jail, with a non-parole period of 26 years, at a Supreme Court hearing in Sydney on Wednesday.
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The now 38-year-old will first be eligible for release on November 25, 2045, when he is aged 60.
Pettiford admitted to murdering 56-year-old Andrew White Murray, who was sleeping rough at Tweed Heads in northern NSW, on November 21, 2019.
In a full admission to police, Pettiford said he targeted Murray because homeless people are, “less dead, less alive almost”.
He also admitted to sending a cryptic letter recovered by police in which he referred to himself as “the hand of death”.
During sentencing, Justice Hament Dhanji said Murray’s murder showed a “complete lack of humanity” and described Pettiford’s view of people experiencing homelessness as “warped and abhorrent”.
“The offence was senseless, it was brutal in its execution,” he said.
Despite a jury rejecting Pettiford’s mental health defence, Justice Dhanji accepted that mental illness played a role in Pettiford’s crimes and to some degree reduced his moral culpability.
“I am satisfied the offender was suffering and continues to suffer from a bipolar disorder,” Justice Dhanji said.
“I have found that the offenders’ culpability for the murder is reduced as a result of his mental condition.”
Pettiford was arrested less than a week after murdering Murray while attempting to take a bus from Surfer’s Paradise to Sydney.
While in custody at Shortland Correctional Centre in Cessnock, Pettiford constructed a weapon out of wire twist ties and razor blades, the court heard.
On December 28, 2019, he used the makeshift blade to slash the throat of fellow inmate Nathan Mellows, who Pettiford admitted to not knowing personally.
Pettiford later told investigators he simply wanted to kill someone who did not have extensive personal relationships, and had heard Mellows say previously he had “nowhere to go, no one” upon his release from custody.
Pettiford initially planned the murder for Christmas Day but deferred the act twice, firstly to watch Star Wars on television and secondly to watch the Boxing Day Test.
He later told psychiatric experts he is a “calculated and controlled evil” and loves killing.
During Pettiford’s 2023 trial, his defence argued he was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the offending.
While the physical acts of the offences were largely undisputed, the jury was asked to find Pettiford not criminally responsible by way of mental illness.
One expert suggested Pettiford was experiencing mania at the time he killed Murray, pointing to symptoms of grandiosity, disinhibition and elevated mood.
His presentation while being interviewed following the attack on Mellows was described as “bizarre” and having an “obvious grandiosity”, by another expert, consistent with a personality disorder with narcissism.
The defence was rejected after the jury heard differing expert opinion on the extent of Pettiford’s mental impairment and ability to understand the wrongfulness of his acts.