Murderer of Joanne Lillecrapp seeks parole, as victim’s brother says family sentenced to a life of sorrow
Joanne Lillecrapp was murdered, her remains dumped in five places. Now one of her killers seeks parole, but the victim’s family warns it is a threat to the community.
Police & Courts
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It has been 19 years and six days since Ron Lillecrapp confronted the women whose remorseless cruelty and betrayal shattered his family.
Nicole Therese Courcier McGuinness and her lesbian lover, Donna Lee Casagrande, beheaded and dismembered Ron’s sibling Joanne, who was also known as John.
Joanne had tried to help them kick their drug habit – they dumped her remains at five locations including beneath her prized strawberry patch, all for a camera and $600.
On July 1, 2003, Mr Lillecrapp stood in the Supreme Court and gave a victim impact statement so powerful that McGuinness lost all composure.
She swore, ranted and screamed from the dock as he spoke and, when he quoted the Bible’s concept of “an eye for an eye”, yelled: “Do it, do it!”
On Thursday, Mr Lillecrapp once again stepped up to the bar table and urged the court not to permit McGuinness yet another chance at parole.
He said he stood by that original statement, but the years since had only intensified his grief and trauma.
“This drug-affected person knowingly drugged, killed and dismembered my brother and then dispersed his body parts around Adelaide for a small amount of money,” he said.
“I am in total disbelief at the suggestion of release into the community … I feel she is a dangerous and unpredictable piece of work … I believe she is a danger to the greater community.
“The atrocities McGuinness committed have really upset me and caused our family to suffer in a great way … I live with what this person has done every day and I have not turned to drugs to lessen the pain.
“I just have to live with it every second of every day – who got the life sentence?”
McGuiness, who appeared in court via video link, wept and put her head in her hands as Mr Lillecrapp spoke.
McGuinness and Casagrande killed Ms Lillecrapp in November 2001 – Casagrande was paroled in 2011, and McGuinness in 2020, against the wishes of Mr Lillecrapp.
Both have been in and out of prison since and, last month, McGuinness blamed her “relapses” on “Googling her own name” and seeing media coverage of her crime.
On Thursday, Mr Lillecrapp questioned how McGuinness “thinks she can be rehabilitated” when she used drugs “each time she had the privilege” of parole.
“I visit my brother in a sterile cemetery … I don’t get to hug him, I don’t get to talk to him, I don’t get to tell him I love him … how am I supposed to deal with that?” he said.
“My true feelings are utter disgust and total disbelief to think that potentially she will be walking around in the greater community.
“I cannot express enough how it’s affected my life, and I wish there was a way I could actually say entirely what I think.
“One of the worst, negative and harmful monsters asking to be trusted and reintegrated into our community again has impacted me in a way no one could understand.”
Justice Laura Stein will hand down her decision on a new non-parole period at a later date.
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