Murderer John Mayatjun ‘tortured partner Kumanjaya Dhamarrandji for 20 years’ before brutal killing, court hears

Kumanjaya Dhamarrandji’s mother said after her killer was found guilty ‘I could hear her spirit talking to me — Mum I’m here’, saying ‘it sounded like she was happy, like she was free’.

John Mayatjun will return to court for further submissions on sentence next year. Picture: Che Chorley

The spirit of a woman trapped in a violent relationship with a man who emotionally tortured her for two decades is “free at last” after he was convicted of her brutal and callous murder, a court has heard.

John Mayatjun, 52, was found guilty by a Supreme Court jury in September of murdering his 49-year-old long-term partner, Kumanjaya Dhamarrandji, in Coconut Grove in August 2021.

During sentencing submissions on Wednesday, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Victoria Engel SC said Ms Dhamarrandji had been unable to escape “a relationship utterly and completely plagued by violence”.

“The very year of her death, in May that year, that was when she indicated a distinct willingness to provide a police statement that she wanted Mr Mayatjun out of her life and that she wanted the relationship over and then, particularly tragically, less than six months later she was dead,” she said.

“He had, we say, if not physically, then in an emotional sense, tortured this deceased for 20 years, culminating in her death.”

Ms Engel said the “staggering” rate of victimisation of Aboriginal women by violent abusers in the NT saw them account for 70 per cent of intimate partner homicides.

And in an emotional victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Dhamarrandji’s aunty Rose Laynbalaynba said “our graveyard is full of our children being buried”.

“Domestic violence has caused a lot of damage to our community, it is killing us,” she said.

Ms Laynbalaynba remembered her cultural daughter as “a kind person” who would spend time helping older people in the community and collecting children for school.

“She did not like being in a violent relationship,” she said.

“She would often call me on the phone to say she wanted freedom and wanted to live a single life, she would tell people she wanted to be free, that she was sick and tired.”

Ms Laynbalaynba said on the night of the murder, she went to the Coconut Grove unit where her niece was killed but was unable to go inside as police were already on the scene.

“I couldn’t feel her spirit near me, I felt everything was silent,” she said.

“After the jury found John Mayatjun guilty, walking around Parap I could hear her alive, her spirit talking to me ‘Mum I’m here’ … it sounded like she was happy, like she was free.

“It felt like after he was convicted her spirit was free at last.”

Mayatjun’s barrister will make submissions on his behalf when he returns to court in February after no interpreter was available on Wednesday.

Originally published as Murderer John Mayatjun ‘tortured partner Kumanjaya Dhamarrandji for 20 years’ before brutal killing, court hears