CALCULATING AND PREMEDITATED – LEADING TO MURDER
To be charged with murder do you have to kill the victim yourself? Well, not exactly. The law will hold you accountable for murder if you choose to take another person’s life by planning, intending or manipulating another person into murdering someone. It is reported that a woman who is a Hong Kong national, manipulated her friend into shooting dead a Melbourne man who she was preparing to marry. She will spend two decades in custody after being sentenced to 21 years, with a non-parole period of 17 years. The friend who murdered the woman’s fiancé will be serving a maximum of 15 years and 3 months in gaol. There was no clear motive for this cold blooded killing but a text message indicates that the woman “seriously wanted him dead”.
THE FACTS
In May 2016, Yu Tung Lo, 39, convinced her friend Daniel Duhovic to murder Paul Hogan, 48, who was shot dead as he sat in his van outside his home at Bacchus Marsh, north west of Melbourne. Lo had lied to Duhovic saying Paul had beaten her, repeatedly raped her and threatened his daughter, to convince him to shoot dead Hogan, a man he had never met.
The Court heard that she had manipulated Duhovic taking steps prosecutors described as “highly manipulative and totally dishonest”. They said Lo was overheard by multiple people in the weeks before Mr Hogan’s murder, saying she wanted him dead, including in a message to Duhovic. The text message states “Daniel, get back to me ASAP cause I need to kill someone. Not joking”. “Don’t talk silly stuff,” he responded. “Nah, I seriously want him dead,” she replied. Lo and Mr Hogan had met with a marriage celebrant the day before his murder. They planned to marry so she could stay in Australia.
On May 24, after alleging Mr Hogan had repeatedly attacked her, she contacted Duhovic and warned him to “be careful, he got witness”, then later “it’s leaving the house now with its witness”. Lo directed Duhovic to where Mr Hogan was, in the back of a van. Mr Hogan was shot in the head at point blank range. Duhovic and Lo fled after the shooting. He took the gun to be cleaned and she wiped her phone history in a failed attempt to delete messages. She went to hospital and was interviewed by police about her rape claims and alleged threats to kill her and her family in Hong Kong. Lo denied knowing about Mr Hogan’s death.
In sentencing Lo for Mr Hogan’s murder, Victorian Supreme Court Judge Paul Coghlan described her as a “very manipulative person” who had been the driving force behind the killing. The Judge said “Very simply, you tried to lie your way out of your involvement in this crime”. Lo later admitted lying about never willingly having sex with Mr Hogan and about the last time she saw him and pleaded guilty to perjury.
Justice Coghlan accepted the relationship was tumultuous but not that Lo was raped. It is also reported that Justice Coghlan said if it was not for several mitigating factors working in her favour, including her poor mental health, he would have imposed a greater sentence.
MURDER – THE LAW
The offence of Murder is contained in section 18 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). The section states:
- Murder shall be taken to have been committed where the act of the accused, or thing by him or her omitted to be done, causing the death charged, was done or omitted with reckless indifference to human life, or with intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm upon some person, or done in an attempt to commit, or during or immediately after the commission, by the accused, or some accomplice with him or her, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for life or for 25 years.
WHAT MUST BE PROVEN?
To establish murder the prosecution must prove each of the following matters beyond reasonable doubt:
- That you did an act or failed to do an act;
- That the act, or failure to act, resulted in the death of another person; and
That you either:
- Intended to kill the person;
- Intended to cause the person really serious bodily injury; or
- Acted with reckless indifference to human life; that is, you foresaw that it was probable that death would result.
To obtain more information about the offence of Murder, click on this link to view our dedicated website. Click here to read about our previous blog about the devastating Murder of Sydney Dentist, Preethi Reedy.