When Mark Anthony Vella was fatally murdered while sleeping, his life as a devoted husband, farmer, and father was cruelly put to an end.
For his murder, which a court claims may never be fully understood, his wife, Dale Lee Vella, has been given a term of up to 24 years in prison.
During sentencing on Friday in the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Helen Wilson stated, “It is obvious (Dale Vella) murdered her husband.”
The reason why it happened is unclear and might never be known.
Before Mr. Vella was killed in August 2021, the couple enjoyed a largely ordinary day on their Murrumbateman property.
One of their dogs had gone missing, and Vella and the other person used their quadbike to search for the animal.
They enjoyed dinner with their buddy David Borg and Georgia, his daughter, after which they stored firewood indoors.
Later that evening, Vella shot her husband in the right eye while he was sleeping. He passed away instantly.
A loud bang and a knock at the door roused Borg up.
When asked why he didn’t shoot himself, Vella replied, “I was going to shoot myself, but I shot him.”
Georgia afterwards “tortured herself” over what she could have done to aid her father before he phoned an emergency and woke her up.
Nothing she or anybody else could have done to help him, according to Justice Wilson.
Vella admitted to manslaughter but never denied killing her husband at their house in the southern tablelands of New South Wales.
Greg Hoare, her attorney, urged the Supreme Court jury to acquit her of murder on the grounds that she was suffering from a serious mental illness at the time.
Borg recalled calling the ambulance even though he knew his friend wouldn’t live, and how it has followed him ever since, according to a statement delivered by crown prosecutor Kate Ratcliffe during Vella’s sentencing hearing.
He wrote, “It saddens me that you thought your only two options were to kill Dale or commit suicide.”
“I won’t ever have a friend like Mark again.”
Vella said she had suffered years of psychological torture at the hands of her spouse in a police interview following her detention.
“I just can’t live like this anymore, I’ve let him abuse (their children) emotionally for years. I’ve tried leaving, but he doesn’t care about anybody but himself,” she said in a video she shot on her phone prior to the shooting.
The day after the jury retired, it convicted her guilty of murder.
Justice Wilson stated that “so many have suffered and will continue to suffer” as a result of her act.
The court disagrees with Mr. Vella being demonised.
The children of the couple saw their mother receive her punishment on Friday while sobbing in the courtroom’s rear.
In February 2039, Vella will be able to apply for parole.
