Borce Ristevski sentenced to six years’ jail over killing wife Karen
Karen Ristevski’s family has condemned her killer husband’s prison sentence, saying justice has not been served. Borce Ristevski could be released as early as 2023 after being ordered to spend a minimum of just six years in jail — and his daughter continues to stand by her dad.
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Karen Ristevski’s family has condemned her killer husband’s prison sentence, saying justice has not been served.
Borce Ristevski, 55, could be released as early as 2023 with time already served taken into account, after being ordered to spend a minimum of just six years in jail.
Karen’s younger brother, Stephen Williams, said on Thursday: “We didn’t get justice today at all.”
He urged Victorians to take a stand against domestic violence. The Office of Public Prosecutions is reviewing whether to appeal.
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A police source said Justice Christopher Beale’s sentence on Thursday was at odds with community attitudes to violence against women.
“It’s pox. It makes a wet lettuce look hard,” the source said.
Ristevski last month pleaded guilty to manslaughter — which carries a maximum of 20 years — on the eve of his murder trial, ending the mystery of Karen’s disappearance from her Avondale Heights home on June 29, 2016.
But it still left her loved ones with no answers as to how and why he killed her.
In what the prosecution described as “one of the worst examples of domestic violence”, Justice Beale started handing down his sentence on the case in the Supreme Court just after 10.30am.
Justice Beale said in his judgment that Ristevski’s recent plea would not deliver the discount he “might have otherwise expected.”
“You have not revealed how or why you killed your wife,” he said.
“You may have turned off the road of deceit but you have not taken the high road of full and frank disclosure consistent with true remorse.
“You acted as a pallbearer, playing the part of the innocent, grieving widower.
“The pretence, the rank deceit only ended a few weeks ago when you pleaded guilty to manslaughter.”
Justice Beale said he could not determine the seriousness of Ristevski’s actions due to “insufficient information” about what happened.
“You may have turned off the road of deceit, but you have not taken the high road of full and frank disclosure consistent with true remorse,” Justice Beale said.
But the Supreme Court judge said the father of two’s silence could not be used to infer his wife’s killing was an upper range example of manslaughter, which the prosecution had argued.
“It is clearly not a low-range example … because of the aggravating domestic violence aspect,” Justice Beale said.
“Without knowing the level and duration of violence perpetrated by you which caused your wife’s death, I simply cannot say whether your offending was mid or upper range.”
Ristevski’s offending, he said, was elevated by the fact Karen was not only his wife but a devoted mother to their daughter, Sarah, and that she was killed at home, “which should have been a sanctuary”.
Justice Beale also acknowledged it was a unique case in not knowing the circumstances of Karen Ristevski’s killing.
But what he did know, he said, was “this is a case of domestic violence, it’s a case of a killing taking place in woman’s home where she should feel safest”.
“By reason of his plea of guilty he’s admitted that he killed Karen Ristevski and he killed her by an unlawful and dangerous act,” Justice Beale said.
Justice Beale said Sarah’s failure to provide a victim impact statement, and instead give a glowing character reference for her father, did not mean she was not a victim.
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“After your wife, she is your principal victim, as Sarah and her mother were very close,” he told Ristevski. “Regrettably, the sentence I must pass on you will add to her grief.”
Sarah Ristevski, 24, attended the Supreme Court to learn her father’s fate, arriving with her face covered by a scarf, and did not comment as she left.
She did not sit inside the packed court, instead being whisked away to a separate room to watch the proceedings on a live TV stream.
Police were baffled that Ristevski did not receive a harsher sentence, pointing to his lying, lack of remorse, refusal to explain how Karen died and failure to reveal where he had dumped her.
“Surely, you would be sentencing in the higher range. What do you have to do to get a decent stretch for manslaughter?” the source asked.
Respect Victoria chief executive Tracey Gaudry said the public expected more.
“Already in 2019, we’ve seen 15 women killed as a direct result of violence across this country,” she said. “Court sentences need to match the severity of these crimes.”
State Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien said the sentence was “woefully inadequate”.
“Under Victoria’s legal system you get five years jail for accidentally crashing a bus into a bridge and six years for killing your wife and concealing your crime. This isn’t justice.”
The Office of Public Prosecutions is reviewing whether to appeal today’s sentence.
“This sentence, like all sentences, will be under review for possible appeal,” an OPP spokesperson said. “However, no decision has been made as yet.”
Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, QC, has 28 days to lodge an appeal.
COPS KNEW EARLY ON BORCE WAS THEIR MAN
Wife killer Borce Ristevski got lost in his own lies.
In the days after Karen’s disappearance, Ristevski remained unmoved: he was
a worried husband trying to find his wife.
But the police knew he was their man early on — at press conferences, they watched his behaviour closely, zoning in even closer when a TV reporter asked, “Borce, did you kill Karen?”
There was no response. His silence on how Karen died has been his only consistency.
Karen’s body was put into her Mercedes convertible boot after she was killed inside the couple’s Avondale Heights home on June 29, 2016.
The day after Karen went “missing”, Ristevski told police they had a fight about their clothing shop’s finances upstairs and then he went down to work on the computer.
His story then changed that Karen went upstairs to “cool off” and later left through the front door.
Fast-forward a few months, and he told police she left via a garage door and he spent the day doing bookworm at home.
But then he was also driving an Uber, having dinner at his mum’s house and buying shisha.
Various CCTV cameras captured the luxury car’s movements — at odds with what Ristevski was telling cops about his movements on the day Karen disappeared. They found a 105-minute discrepancy in his version.
At one point, he told detectives he drove Karen’s car to test a faulty fuel gauge, but it later corrected itself after going over a bump in the road.
His phone held key clues — not that he knew.
According to Ristevski, he had his phone switched off for the entire day on June 29 2016 — but phone tower records showed otherwise.
He also told officers his phone was charging inside the Mercedes, but when police checked out that story, they realised the car had no capacity to charge his phone.
His call records help pull apart the “I’m so worried” charade — he did not call friends or family once to check on his wife.
When signs were being put up to help find Karen, Ristevski went upstairs for a sleep. He didn’t even join concerned friends in the search.
Google was used in his quest to be the clean killer — searches on a family iPad show he typed in how Google tracks mobile phones and how police can detect traces of blood.
Police stayed in their lane while Ristevski tried to drive them in different directions: even family members tried to put up road blocks.
Karen’s stepson, Anthony Rickard, alluded to a seedy family affair while Ristevski’s brother, Vasko Ristevski, claimed his sister-in-law was alive and had fled overseas.
As pressure mounted on Ristevski, he became increasingly angry at police.
He told daughter Sarah, “They don’t give a f---”, and coached friends to stop talking to investigators.
Ristevski concealed his wife’s body so well, wedging it between two tree trunks in a remote location in Macedon Regional Park, it took eight months for it to be found.
“Well, it’s got nothing to do with me,” he told A Current Affair when they asked him about it.
Ristevski’s charade ended after 987 days when he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
His new role of jailed wife killer now starts, but he won’t be playing it for too long given the length of the sentence.