Sweetheart killer gets 10 years

AN Ipswich man who killed his childhood sweetheart during an episode of jealous rage has been sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.

AN Ipswich man who killed his childhood sweetheart during an episode of jealous rage has been sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.

A subdued Garry John Mills, 33, sat in the Brisbane Supreme Court with his head bowed and sobbing as gruesome details of the unlawful killing and his attempts to then cover up the crime were made public for the first time.

The court heard that Mills had most likely suffocated Jolene Ruby Mills, 29, or strangled her using an electrical extension cord during a violent brawl in their Ripley home, on the southern outskirts of Ipswich, on the early hours of July 10, 2005.

Mills then removed Ms Mills's clothing, wrapped her body in garbage bags and dumped her in a shallow grave in a secluded area of bushland about 15km from their family home.

Mills then returned home and hid her possessions, including a mobile phone, handbag and her pyjamas, along with bed linen, his pyjamas and the extension cord in a manhole above the garage, before telephoning her friends to ask if they knew where his wife was.

During the entire episode the couple's two young children were sleeping in the next room.

The court was told that although police had already found some incriminating evidence against him stuffed in the manhole, they asked Mills to make an impassioned public plea for the safe return of his wife shortly after her disappearance.

During that media appearance, played to the court yesterday, Mills said his wife was ``full of life'' and ``not a frightened person.''

The following day police approached Mills with the evidence and he confessed to killing his wife.

He told investigators that after his wife returned home from visiting a friend at a nightclub the pair began to exchange insults and both admitted to sexual encounters with others and that the marriage was over.

Mills told police that the two then began to pull each other's hair with Ms Mills grabbing the extension cord and trying to put it around his neck.

Mills said he then ``went into meltdown'' and wrapped the cord around his wife's throat and neck to apply pressure and told police that he could see her face ``going redder and redder, her eyes were blood shot and she was gasping for air.''

He released his grip on the cord and stopped pulling as they fell on the matrimonial bed and as his wife began to struggle he squeezed her face as hard as he could with his left hand.

They then fell to the floor and Mills sat on his wife's back and continued to strangle her until she went limp.

However he then refused to speak to investigators for many months before succumbing to his ``Christian values'' by providing a map to a prison guard of the area where he dumped Ms Mills body.

The following morning police discovered her remains stuffed in a garbage bag.

Mills later told police that he believed his wife was having ``an early mid-life crisis'' and was having at least one extra-marital affair.

Mills also revealed that she had rented a house and intended to move out of the Ripley residence before he convinced her to try to repair their marriage.

Mills has spent 930 days in pre-sentence custody.