Two men, Clinton Travis Oliver, 45, and Braydon Franklin, 35, have been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 57-year-old grandmother Donna Louise Howe. The pair were found guilty by a jury of murder and interfering with Ms. Howe's corpse.
Oliver, who was a housemate of Ms. Howe, and Franklin, a frequent visitor, killed her on Mother's Day 2022. According to court documents, tension had arisen over suspicions that Ms. Howe had stolen property from the two men.
Following the murder, the men rolled Ms. Howe's body in a rug and kept it in a vehicle for a day before dumping and burning it in bushland near Beerburrum, in the Glass House Mountains. They remained at the scene for hours as the body burned. Ms. Howe's skeletal remains were discovered on June 7, 2022, two days after her daughter reported her missing.
In a victim impact statement, Ms. Howe's mother, Margaret Ellem, told the Brisbane Supreme Court that her daughter had been taken in a "senseless act of violence" and that "to think she had been thrown away like rubbish is beyond belief." Ms. Howe's daughter, Tiana Howe, described her mother as having "a heart of gold" and noted that she had taken in Oliver and Franklin, along with their partners. "All her kindness taken for granted, and for her life to be taken by the ones she was trying to help," Tiana Howe stated.
Justice Martin Burns described Oliver and Franklin as "devoid of any shred of human decency" and called their actions "senseless and barbaric" and "acts of extreme cowardice." He noted that Oliver likely struck the fatal blow in an ambush, possibly with a hammer, stating that Ms. Howe "would have had no inkling she was about to be set upon."
The judge also characterized the interference with the corpse as being in the "worst possible category of the offence." Both men received a life sentence for murder and a maximum of five years for interfering with a corpse, to be served concurrently. The minimum parole period was increased from 20 to 21 years due to their "atrocious" post-murder conduct.
Oliver will not be eligible for parole until June 2043, and Franklin will not be eligible for release until November 2044. The former partners of Oliver and Franklin, Cassie Ann Reid and Chelsea Butterworth, have previously pleaded guilty to being accessories after the fact.
