Court told how Nowra couple suffocated, strangled, burned
AN accomplice in a couple's gruesome double murder has detailed how a woman masterminded their luring, detention, suffocation, strangling and burning.
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AN accomplice in a gruesome double murder has detailed how a woman masterminded the luring, detention, suffocation and strangling of a NSW married couple and then incinerated their bodies to ensure none of the murderers' DNA could be found.
Kim Leanne Snibson, 37, pleaded guilty to the murders of Kathryn McKay and Gregory Hosa midway through her NSW Supreme Court trial in May.
The bodies of Mr Hosa, 56, and Ms McKay, 44, were found burning in metal drums in the Tomerong State Forest, south of Nowra, on the NSW south coast, in January 2006.
Before police were even aware the horse stud couple were missing, Snibson's co-accused Stacey Mark Lea-Caton had come forward to confess.
Lea-Caton, 29, was sentenced in November last year to a minimum prison sentence of 16-and-a-half years and a maximum of 22 years for his part in the kidnappings and murders.
With his head shaved and wearing prison greens, Lea-Caton today gave evidence at Snibson's sentencing in the Supreme Court.
A tearful Snibson looked anxious during much of Lea-Caton's evidence as he recounted how she had directed him and a second man, Andrew Wayne Flentjar, how to deal with the couple and their belongings.
Snibson had phoned Mr Hosa and Ms McKay and summoned them to a property at Nowra Hill, Lea-Caton told the court today.
Once inside the house, both had been knocked to the ground and hog-tied, and their mouths had been stuffed with socks.
A short time later the pair, who remained conscious throughout their ordeal, were killed, Lea-Caton said.
"Ms McKay was (the first to be killed)," he told the court.
"There was tape wrapped all the way around her head."
Asked who had wrapped the packing tape around Ms McKay, he said: "Kim did".
Almost immediately afterwards, Mr Hosa was killed.
"A bit of wire made like a noose wrapped around his neck and Kim (Snibson) stood on his back and pulled it up," Lea-Caton told the court.
At Tomerong State Forest, Snibson had poured petrol into two 44-gallon drums, each containing a body, and had thrown a burning rag into each.
Flentjar, who was sentenced last month to at least seven years' jail, is also due to give evidence at the sentencing of Snibson, which continues before Justice Terence Buddin.
He pleaded guilty to detaining the couple for advantage and inflicting actual bodily harm but was found not guilty of their murders.