Jury returns guilty verdict for Lindy Williams

THE judge sentencing Lindy Williams for the brutal murder and decapitation of her Coolum Football Club boyfriend has slammed her extensive attempt to cover up the gruesome crime after she was found guilty today.

HEARTLESS and horrific.

These are the words used by Justice Peter Flanagan to describe the acts of the woman who murdered her boyfriend and hacked him up with an electric saw.

Lindy Williams, 60, was this morning sentenced to life behind bars for the killing of Coolum Football Club president George Gerbic in September 2013.

Williams was found guilty by a jury after and nine-day trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court.

She will be eligible for parole in 2034, after already serving four years behind bars.

The jury found Williams murdered Mr Gerbic before decapitating his body by removing his head, hands and legs.

George Gerbic and Lindy Williams.

She then left his torso burning on the side of a road near Gympie on September 19, 2013.

The 60-year-old was sentenced to the maximum two years’ jail for what Justice Peter Flanagan described as “one of the worst cases” of interfering with a corpse.

Williams pleaded guilty at the start of the trial to disposing of the body.

“This surely must be one of the worst cases of interference of a human body, both in relation to you trying to burn the torso, and decapitating Mr Gerbic’s head, hands and lower body,” Justice Flanagan said.

The sentence will be served concurrently with the life sentence given to Williams for the murder of Mr Gerbic.

In sentencing, Justice Flanagan told Williams she had weaved a “detailed and sophisticated” web of lies following Mr Gerbic’s death, including lying to his elderly parents about their only child.

A jury has deliberated for one day to find Lindy Williams guilty of the murder of her boyfriend George Gerbic.

“It is the case that for 10 months you undertook a (recurring), detailed and sophisticated cover-up, both of the means by which George Gerbic died and the fact that he was in fact dead,” he said.

“The cover-up included lying to so many people but what I found most distressing was the lies that you told to George Gerbic’s parents, who were elderly …

“It is now apparent that Mr Gerbic senior passed away … and is now buried beside the torso of his son.

“There was a heartlessness in what you did in lying to George Gerbic’s parents, his ex-partners and indeed lying to his friends.”

The court heard during the trial Williams had contacted the 66-year-old’s friends and family from his phone and email account following his death, claiming the pair were travelling overseas and getting married.

The Sunshine Coast house of George Gerbic. Picture: Chris McCormack

“Because you dismembered his body it remains unknown where his head is, where his lower body is, and where his hands are … that fact looms large in the impact statements of his former wife..,” Justice Flanagan told Williams.

The fact Williams did not get Mr Gerbic any medical attention, if her account was true and he slipped and fell, added to the seriousness of her conduct, the court heard.

“It is inexplicable why a person in that situation would not have gone to police or at least told close friends. You did not. You instead sought to cover up the unlawful death…,” Justice Flanagan said.

“The act of cutting up George Gerbic with a saw that you had purchased … is by any view a horrific act.

“It has by that act deprived the family of the closure that would come with being able to bury their father.”