A man who brutally murdered a rough sleeper with a rock and slashed a fellow inmate’s throat will spend the next quarter of a century behind bars, after avoiding a life sentence.
Kevin James Pettiford, 38, was sentenced to 39 years’ jail, with a non-parole period of 26 years, at a supreme court hearing in Sydney on Wednesday.
Pettiford could be eligible for release on 25 November 2045, when he is aged 60.
He had admitted to murdering 56-year-old Andrew Whyte Murray, who was sleeping rough at Tweed Heads in northern New South Wales on 21 November 2019.
In a full admission to police, Pettiford said he targeted Murray because homeless people were “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 the homeless 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, Dhanji accepted that mental illness played a role in the crimes and to some degree reduced his moral culpability.
“I am satisfied the offender was suffering and continues to suffer from a bipolar disorder,” 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 the Shortland Correctional Centre in Cessnock, Pettiford constructed a weapon out of wire twist ties and razor blades, the court heard.
On 28 December 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.
He 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 was a “calculated and controlled evil” and loved 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 after 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.