An Australian man who murdered his parents and got away for 15 years by successfully blaming his brother — whom he also killed — was jailed for life yesterday.
Jeffrey Gilham, then 23, stabbed his father, mother and brother to death in their Sydney home in 1993 — but told police he killed his sibling in a fit of rage after discovering he had murdered their parents.
He pleaded guilty in 1995 to the manslaughter of his 25-year-old brother, escaping with a five-year good behavior bond.
But Judge Roderick Howie said the crimes had been coldly planned for weeks, with Gilham calculating he “would be pitied as a loving son who reacted in an extraordinary fashion to the scene of horror that confronted him.”
‘CONSUMMATE LIAR”
Describing Gilham, 39, as a “consummate liar and brilliant actor,” Howie said the stabbing of his parents Helen and Steven and brother Christopher at their Sydney home was a “remarkable human drama.”
“The facts surrounding these killings, the death of the offender’s brother on the same evening and the history of the prosecution of these offenses are truly extraordinary,” he told the Supreme Court in a sentencing hearing after Gilham’s November 2008 conviction.
“By his lies he was able to buy himself 15 years living as a happily married family man,” the judge said.
Gilham was eventually charged with the killings in February 2006 after 13 years of campaigning by his paternal uncles who believed that he, and not his brother, had killed their father Steve, 58, and mother Helen, 55.
Howie said that the stabbings were “designed to simulate the actions of a demented person — such as the offender was portraying his brother to be — regardless of the terror and agony such a killing would impose on the victim.”
EMOTIONLESS
Gilham showed no emotion at the sentencing, but his wife Robecca burst into tears and told reporters she still believed he was innocent, the national AAP news agency reported.
His uncle, Tony Gilham, however, said he was relieved at the sentence and described his nephew as “completely inhuman.”
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