Graham Sales: Ronald Penn murderer sentenced for Central Coast killing
A depraved killer will likely die in prison after being sentenced for a barbaric murder which had remained a mystery for nearly a quarter of a century. A court heard Graham Sales tricked his victim into digging his own grave, before beating him with a baseball bat and then strangling him.
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A court has heard the humiliating way Graham Thomas Sales murdered Ronald Penn in 1995 by “tricking him” into digging his own grave.
He then whacked the 61-year-old so hard with a baseball bat behind the knees that it broke before choking him with a piece of the splintered wood, a court has heard.
Mr Penn, Sales’ driver, thought he was digging a hole to uncover a stash of cash Sales’ said he buried in the North Entrance area of the Central Coast, not realising he would be buried in that hole and his body never recovered.
His murder would remain a mystery until his killer admitted to the deed in May 2018.
Almost one year later, in May 2019, Sales’ pleaded guilty to the offence in the Supreme Court.
At the same time, he confessed to soliciting his brother to murder his ex-partner “JF” at Wyong Local Court, the same day the court was set to hear an application for an Apprehended Domestic Violence Order against Sales.
She survived, but on Wednesday, a court heard Sales could very well die in prison.
The stony-faced 56-year-old appeared on screen in the Supreme Court on Wednesday with a bright white beard, a bald head and big belly.
The sadistic monster, who is already serving lengthy prison sentences for sexually abusing women and underage girls, some aged as young as 12 and 13, will be eligible for release on November 13, 2052.
He will be 89 years-old.
He is already serving 36 years and 12 years respectively for offending which includes raping women with household objects and forcing them to eat their dinner off the floor, and hogtying the women and placing them face down in the bath.
Sales was today sentenced to 15 years for Mr Penn’s murder, with eight years and six months non-parole, and 12 years for soliciting the murder of JF, with seven years and two months non-parole.
Judge Peter Garling opened with a summary of the callous murder: “(Mr Sales’) tricked the deceased into accompanying him into the area. Tricked him into digging his own grave. Struck him with a baseball bat and choked him to death”.
He then read out the full version of events, as retold by Sales.
In October 1995, Mr Penn was staying with Sales at his home, and also acting as a paid driver for the non-licensed offender.
Around October 24 to 27, Sales contrived a story about money being buried in the local bush area and told Mr Penn that if he helped dig it up, he could have a share.
Mr Penn drove them to an area of beach, parked the car, and they walked along some scrub until they came to a small clearing of sandy soil.
That’s where the money was buried, Sales told Mr Penn, and he and Sales’ brother, Ross, started digging, deeper and deeper for several hours.
During this time, Sales left the area and returned with a baseball bat.
While Mr Penn was still digging the hole, Sales approached him from behind and struck him with the bat “with all his might”, the police facts read, hitting him below the knee and “causing the bat to break”.
As he writhed in pain on the ground, the more than 100kg Sales held a broken piece of the baseball bat across his throat “with all his strength”.
He “struggled to get free”, holding the wood inches from his neck, but could not hold it back anymore and stopped breathing, the court heard.
He disposed of the baseball bat and clothes in a nearby skip bin before setting Mr Penn’s van alight in Berkeley Vale.
The murder involved “gratuitous cruelty ... (and) deception,” Judge Garling said.
Judge Garling also read out the facts around soliciting the murder of JF on November 21, 1995, just weeks after he murdered Mr Penn.
The night of Mr Penn’s murder, the offender and his brother were driving to Bateau Bay in the Central Coast when he told his brother he “had to kill” JF, and if he refused he would kill him.
Sales was in a relationship with “JF” for about four years until 1995.
She reported his abuse to police and was placed in various women’s refuges in Gosford, but Mr Sales kept finding her, and eventually police took out an AVO against Sales for JF
The AVO hearing was listed at court on November 21, 1995.
The plan, Sales told his brother Ross, was that he would enter the courthouse and shoot JF, before telling police he was mentally unwell.
Ross even attended a health centre and told staff he was having “homicidal thoughts” about a female.
On their day at court, Sales, his brother and some family all attended together.
Ross was holding a large bag which contained a gun he had shortened and ammunition.
He walked over to a quiet area in the courtroom and placed four rounds in the gun, one solid bullet and a number of pellets.
Ross approached JF from behind, called out her name, and fired the gun as she turned around, hitting her in the left hand, wrist, right shoulder and face.
She ended up in intensive care but survived.
Ross was arrested, but a Gosford District Court found him not guilty of the murder in 1996, for reasons of mental illness.
Judge Garling found Sales’ motive was to prevent JF from giving evidence against him at court or “eliminating” a crown witness.
Sales’ total sentence for his lifetime of offending was increased by eight years.