‘Bodies in barrels’ mastermind Kim Snibson launches appeal over murder sentence

Sixteen years after police made the gruesome discovery in a NSW state forest, the mastermind behind the killings is back in court.

A woman who masterminded the kidnapping and gruesome murder of a couple whose bodies were found burning in barrels on the South Coast has launched an appeal against her prison sentence, 14 years after she was jailed for the gruesome crime.

Kim Leanne Snibson was sentenced to 32 years behind bars in 2008 after pleading guilty to kidnapping and murdering horse stud owners Gregory Hosa and Kathryn McKay at her Nowra home in January 2006.

According to the NSW Supreme Court judgment at the time, Justice Terrence Buddin found Snibson recruited two accomplices, Stacey Lea-Caton and Andrew Wayne Flentjar, and lured Mr Hosa and Ms McKay to her home, where they were gagged and hogtied before being strangled and suffocated to death.

Their bodies were then bundled into metal 44-gallon drums and driven to Tomerong State Forest, where they were set on fire.

Justice Buddin said he could not determine from the evidence whether it had been Snibson or Lea-Caton who killed the couple (Flentjar was cleared of the murder charges at trial) but found Snibson was the mastermind behind the cruel plan.

Police looked for evidence at the house where Kim Snibson lived in Calymea Street, Nowra.

“Each of the victims would inevitably have experienced a slow and painful death,” he said.

He also said he was unable to establish Snibson’s motive for the killings.

Victims Kathryn McKay and

Greg Hosa.

Snibson was handed a non-parole period of 24 years, meaning she would become eligible to apply for parole in 2030.

However, The Daily Telegraph can reveal almost a decade and a half later, Snibson is seeking leave to appeal the length of her prison term in the state’s highest court, citing a legal principle that was yet to be established when she was originally sentenced.

Now aged 52, Snibson looked every bit the model inmate when she appeared in the Court of Criminal Appeal last week via video link from the Dillwynia Correctional Centre in Sydney’s northwest.

Neatly dressed in a green prison uniform and sporting a heavy fringe cut into her red-tinged hair, the mother-of-two listened intently as her legal team argued her sentence should be reduced to reflect current legal principles regarding standard non-parole periods.

Snibson has launched an appeal against her prison sentence.

A non-publication order was placed on further arguments made in favour of the reduced sentence and cannot be reported.

The Crown opposed any reduction in sentence, submitting that Justice Buddin had been correct in applying the legal principles at the time and the prison term should stand.

Justices Robert Beeches-Jones, David Davies and Peter Hamill will deliver their judgment at a later date.

Lea-Caton is currently serving a 22-year sentence for his role in the kidnapping and murders.

Flentjar was jailed for seven years for his role in kidnapping the couple.