Financial planner Trung The Ma gets life for hammer murder of client Huegio Bonham

A BRISBANE financial planner who beat a client to death with a hammer to stop him blabbing about a multi-million-dollar fraud has been sentenced to life behind bars.

A BRISBANE financial planner who beat a client to death with a hammer to stop him blabbing about a multi-million-dollar fraud has been sentenced to life behind bars.

Indooroopilly businessman Trung The Ma, 35, was last week convicted by a jury of the murder of Huegio Bonham at Tallai, on the Gold Coast in 2014.

He had offered to plead guilty to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility at the time of the killing but this was not accepted by the crown at the start of the trial, earlier this month.

Ma also confessed to disposing of the 63-year-old’s body and was sentenced to a further two years’ jail for the offences.

After retiring for less than two hours, a jury on Friday found Ma guilty of Mr Bonham’s murder.

Trung The Ma has been sentenced to life behind bars for murder, as well as the maximum of two years for interfering with a corpse.

He was today sentenced to life imprisonment and will be eligible for parole in 2034 after already serving almost four years behind bars.

The two-year jail sentence for disposing of Mr Bonham’s body will be served concurrently.

The court heard Ma had defrauded clients, including Mr Bonham of more than $1.3 million over four years.

The court heard Ma killed the man because he feared he would reveal the extent of this fraudulent activity – including that he had stolen $706,000 from the 63-year-old.

The fraud was discovered when Mr Bonham tried to purchase a property to build a wellness “commune” on.

Ma arrived at Mr Bonham’s Gold Coast home on February 3, 2014 and killed him with a hammer.

He then took the body and hid it inside large plastic containers he bought from Bunnings in Oxley before dumping it in a National Storage shed Indooroopilly.

Mr Bonham’s decomposing body was found by police in the storage shed about two weeks later.

In a record of interview played to the jury during the trial, Ma told police he drove to Mr Bonham’s property to convince him to continue to retain his services.

“Our discussions got more heated... (I thought) ‘I can’t let this guy take my business down’. I’d worked too many years to build it. For me, it just felt like there was too much at stake,” Ma said to police in 2014.

Huegio Bonham was brutally murdered in February 2914.

“He kept talking I just thought to myself: ‘He’s just going to bury me, he’s going to bury my business’.”

During sentencing, Justice Susan Brown said Ma killed Mr Bonham because he believed his life would “unravel” if his dishonesty was revealed.

“You knew if Mr Bonham left you as a client and left to another financial planner, your fraud would be discovered, rather than taking responsibility... you still thought you could avoid it coming to light,” she said.

“On the third of February, 2014 you took the life of an innocent man in his 60s and tore the lives apart of two families – Mr Bonham’s and your own.

“The family of Huegio Bonham have said quietly in the court each day... waiting for this day.

“By your own actions, you have also removed yourself as a father as two little girls. You should have been there to teach them and protect them...

“All innocent people did not deserve the suffering that they have had to bare because of your conduct.”

Originally published as Financial planner Trung The Ma gets life for hammer murder of client Huegio Bonham