- Young mum Kristy-Lee Hall was talented, vibrant and loved by her family.
But like Jill Meagher and Sarah Cafferkey, Kristy-Lee Hall was killed in a cruel fashion.
Ms Hall, loving mother to Chloe, 4, was murdered, apparently hidden in a shed and later dumped face down in a creek.
The murder case has gone relatively unnoticed.
A Supreme Court jury pronounced her killer guilty on the same day Jill Meagher’s alleged rapist and murderer, Adrian Bayley, made his first appearance in a packed room at Melbourne Magistrates Court.
Ms Hall’s younger sister, Adele Downs, said Kristy-Lee’s murder must not be ignored.
After a 17-day trial in September, a jury found Adam Emilio Mocenigo guilty of murdering Ms Hall.
Mocenigo, now 34, was Ms Hall’s estranged partner and the father of her daughter.
At the time Ms Hall, 27, was killed she was seeing another man after falling out of love with Mocenigo.
But family and friends described the former St Albans Secondary College student as a loving mother and devoted friend who was studying to become a community service worker.
Mocenigo told Homicide Squad detectives he accidentally killed Ms Hall during a struggle at his Heidelberg Heights home in March last year. He panicked and hid her body in a backyard shed.
One or two days later, Ms Hall’s body was removed from the shed, thrown among power tools in the boot of a car and driven to a remote area in Kinglake National Park.
The body was dumped face down in a creek as if, in Crown prosecutor Andrew Tinney’s words, Ms Hall “was a troublesome package that needed to be hidden away”.
A day later, Mocenigo returned to the scene with his and Ms Hall’s two-year-old daughter.
Leaving the child at the car with an unsuspecting female companion, he returned to the body to try to hide it better. But two swimmers had that day found the body and, having informed police, were making statements in a nearby car park.
Police guided detectives to the site. Mocenigo lied about Ms Hall’s whereabouts before investigators eventually charged him.
Ms Hall had a black eye and bruises on her arms, back and shoulder but a pathologist could not determine the a cause of death.
Mocenigo was in the Supreme Court this week for a pre-sentence plea hearing.
Ms Hall’s mother, Jenny Vea, spoke of the anguish of not knowing the full story.
Reading from her victim impact statement, Adele Downs said she felt lost without her sister, who was supposed to be maid of honour at her wedding last year. Ms Downs and her husband take care of Chloe.
Justice Lex Lasry will sentence Mocenigo on a date to be fixed – Paul Anderson
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