Two Australian Teenagers Sentenced to Life for Murder

Two Australian teenagers who killed their friend and buried her under a house in Perth were setenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday. They cant be let out on prole till they are in their thirties.

The two 17-year-olds, who cannot be named because of their age, pleaded guilty in March to the wilful murder of Eliza Jane Davis last June.

Perth Children's Court President Denis Reynolds described the murder as "gruesome and merciless in the extreme".

During lengthy sentencing remarks, Judge Reynolds told the pair - who were 16 at the time of the murder - that their long history of drug use leading up to the night before the murder could not excuse what they had done.

All three girls danced together at a party on June 17, just hours before the killing.

Prosecutor Simon Stone told the court the three friends had slept in the same house after the party, Eliza in one bedroom while the killers slept in a second room.

Idly chatting the next morning, the two disturbed teenagers discovered neither of them would feel bad about killing someone, and decided to kill their friend.

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After they buried the corpse, they reported her missing and pretended to help in the search before turning themselves in to police after deciding the grave was so shallow that discovery was inevitable.

The girls have since said they regret the devastating impact on Eliza's family and friends but do not feel sad she is dead.

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Stone said experts considered the pair potentially dangerous to others in custody if allowed to continue their dark and enmeshed relationship.

"They planned the murder with calmness, consideration, emotional detachment and the desire to have the experience of killing someone," he said.

Judge Reynolds said that while drugs "formed an integral part of their lifestyle and psychological health", they were not the "catalyst" for the murderous behaviour of the girls on the morning of the killing.

"The facts of this case put it in the worst category of the most serious offence in the criminal code. It was planned," Judge Reynolds said.

Ron Davis, Eliza's grandfather, said outside court that the killers would be running around in 15 years but he had lost his granddaughter forever.

"I will never get her back. She is gone for ever. We've lost her", he said. "They have shown no remorse. It's all a big joke to them."

Only last week there was the report on the sentencing of two other Australian teenagers, also drug abusers and who gruesomely killed a handicapped cab driver in Sydney in January last. The driver died of a heart attack after he was beaten up by the two fourteen year olds.

But they were let off with less than a three-and-a-half year term with a possible parole in August 2009, leading to all round outrage. They too showed no tinge of remorse.

Source-Medindia
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