A man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of his elderly mother, which occurred just one hour after he shot and killed his brother in a different state.
The shooting deaths of Paul Cohrs’s brother in New South Wales and his mother, who was 81 years old, occurred in October 2018 as a result of a long-running family conflict.
Today, in Victoria’s Supreme Court, he was sentenced to a minimum of 23 years in jail for the murder of his mother, Bette Schulz Cohrs.
In her judgment, Justice Lesley Taylor stated that Cohrs’ act was premeditated and planned, driven by resentment and injustice.
“You targeted an elderly woman who had a right to feel secure in her own home,” Justice Taylor remarked today.
The thought that you might shoot her had been terrifying her. “In her last moments, she would have realised her fears were realised.”
Cohrs and his brother Raymond’s relationship deteriorated in 2012 due to their disagreements about family company properties.
Cohrs and his wife were residing on a property on the NSW border when Raymond, with the backing of his mother, chose to have all of the properties assessed.
A real estate agent and the brothers got into an argument after showing up at the gate of the property for an evaluation.
Along with the other two guys, they traveled to a shearing station, where Cohrs fatally shot his brother in the chest and head before putting the agent in handcuffs in the shed.
In the northwest of Victoria, near Red Cliffs, he went 120km to visit his mother, and an hour later, he shot her in the chest.
After Cohrs got in his car and drove away, his four-year-old grandson discovered his lifeless body covered in blood on the kitchen floor.
After he freed the real estate agent, he drove back to Lake Victoria Station and made an attempt at suicide.
During his May trial, a Supreme Court jury ruled Cohrs guilty despite his claims that he was mentally ill and so innocent of his mother’s murder.
Since his brother’s death happened in another jurisdiction, he was not convicted for it in New South Wales.
