Vicky Soteriou jailed for at least nine years over husband kill plot
AN EVIL wife has been jailed for plotting with her lover to kill her husband. Hear the sentence handed down.
True Crime Scene
Don't miss out on the headlines from True Crime Scene. Followed categories will be added to My News.
AN EVIL wife has been jailed for at least nine years after plotting to kill her husband with her secret lover.
Mum-of-three Vicky Soteriou was this morning jailed in the Supreme Court for her role planning the attack on her husband, Chris, on January 2, 2010.
Soteriou, 44, had earlier that day met her boyfriend Ari Dimitrakis and given him a knife wrapped in a towel.
She then told her husband she had planned a surprise party for his 44th birthday and insisted on driving his Nissan 350 sports car and parking in a Fitzroy back street.
As the couple returned to their car later that night, walking arm-in-arm, Dimitrakis attacked Mr Soteriou, slashing his throat and stabbing him up to six times.
Mr Soteriou suffered life-threatening injuries but survived the attack.
A jury last month found Soteriou guilty of attempted murder.
This morning, Justice Elizabeth Curtain said the culpability of Soteriou was high.
Justice Curtain told Soteriou she had shown a "complete lack of regret'' and "very little has been said about your remorse''.
"You did not wield the knife but you intended your husband's death just as surely as if you had,'' she said.
Dimitrakis, who made a deal with the prosecution to give evidence against Soteriou, pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury and was jailed for seven years with a non-parole period of five.
During Soteriou’s trial, details of her sordid love affair with Dimitrakis revealed the pair had gotten several tattoos of each other’s names and initials and even bought grave plots together.
Outside court, Mr Soteriou's family wore T-shirts saying "justice not served'', but Mr Soteriou said he was pleased the case was over.
"I'm very glad that it's all finished,'' he said.
"Certainly my extended family are not pleased with the outcome but I'm very pleased that it's all over and I've got an opportunity to move on.''
Soteriou was jailed for 12 years with a non-parole period of nine.
No suspicions, until it was too late
Mr Soteriou has previously told how he saw was his wife, Vicky, watching him being stabbed as he slumped to the ground, with a knife in his stomach.
When he woke in hospital, with his throat cut and seven stab wounds, Vicky told him a stranger had stabbed him: a man crouched next to their car with the intent to kill.
What she didn't tell him was that she had planned it.
Early last year, the Soterious were well known in the Greek community. Everyone liked the affluent, good-looking couple.
Anyone who didn't know them soon would, for all the wrong reasons: Vicky's secret life of lies, sex and deceit was about to unravel.
Chris Soteriou remembers a good life: a well-paid job, three beautiful children and a loving wife.
"She fulfilled me, she was a great mother, we had no problems, we had a great marriage," Chris said.
"She used to tell me every day 'til death do us part'. She used to love me so much."
Chris doesn't know when things changed for Vicky.
"She never questioned me and I never questioned her," he said.
"It was a very trustworthy marriage, from my perspective anyway."
What Chris did not know was that his "loving wife" was living a lie.
On her 40th birthday in 2007, Vicky had bumped into an old flame, a married man named Ari Dimitrakis.
By 2009, they were obsessed with each other, tattooing each other's names on their ring fingers and initials on their necks.
Vicky had a warped fascination with tattoos. She made Chris ink himself with her name before they married, and when Ari got one too, she rewarded him with sex.
The couple began a torrid affair of seedy sexual encounters. Once they were even caught undressed in the back seat of a car by police.
Vicky was a woman who liked expensive things, but Ari, a limo driver who lived in his mother-in-law's basement, had nothing to his name.
He was a stark contrast to Chris, who owned several properties and $250,000 in life insurance and super.
Vicky imagined Ari in her luxurious life. She was planning a life with him, her parents, her daughter Marie, 13, and two-year-old twins Andrew and Dimitra.
She even bought them all grave plots together to prove it. But there was no room for Chris.
January 2 last year was Chris's 44th birthday.
His cards told him he was the best husband and father in the world.
Vicky called him "my darling husband Chris".
"Thank you for loving me so much, your wife who adores you," she wrote on his card.
She told him he was having a surprise party at one of their favourite restaurants.
"I was looking forward to it, I thought she was being loving, I was happy," Chris said.
Night from hell
Vicky never drove, but that night she was determined to get behind the wheel.
She asked Chris to buy so many bottles of wine he struggled to carry them, especially since the car was parked in a back street far from their destination, the Alpha Ouzeri restaurant in Fitzroy.
Chris was wearing his new shirt - Vicky's present from that morning - and as they walked arm in arm she even told him he'd be getting lucky that night.
Their friends thought Vicky was acting normally.
"She was as cool as a cucumber," Chris said.
"We had a great time, we ate, we drank and we danced."
The group then arranged to meet in the city for drinks. But as they turned into Rose St, Chris saw a dark figure near his prized Nissan 350.
"We were walking by and just looking at this character," he said.
"As soon as we walked by he pulled me back by my leather jacket and slit my throat.
I yelled 'What's going on?' and I was yelling out to Vicky 'My love. Run, just run'."
Chris thought he was being mugged for his wallet, until he felt blood streaming down his neck: "I felt the blood just running down my chest. I was starting to lose consciousness, looking around for Vicky.
"I remember just seeing, and I think it was Vicky, just a shadow of someone just standing there watching and I'm just reaching out for her. I just fell on the footpath against the fence and I felt more stab wounds, one by one."
Chris was in a coma for 13 days.
On January 15 at 6am, he woke to the sound of his brother's voice. He remembers Vicky's emotional entrance and now marvels at her reaction.
"She used to come and cry on top of my bed, saying how much she loved me," he said.
Hunt for attacker
All he wanted now was to find out who had stabbed him.
Chris didn't have to wait long: his brother said police were closing in.
"I told Vicky the police were closing in and close to making an arrest, and I realise she was just stunned. Instead of being very pleased she was just shocked and stunned," he said.
The next time he would see his wife would be in court.
While Chris recovered in hospital, Vicky went to police and confessed to planning the attack with Ari.
It fell to police to break the devastating news to Chris.
"I was gutted, I just wanted to end my life. I was just in a state of shock for days. They say love is blind. It's so true," he said.
In the following months Chris's family and friends rallied as he learned how to become a hands-on dad.
"I've put everything on hold, my career, everything, just trying to get the twins into a good routine and re-establish their lives," he said.
His only worry is telling his kids why their mum is in jail: "What do I tell my kids?"
But, "I'm blessed that I've survived ... I have an opportunity to raise my kids. We look forward to a bright, new fresh start".
How this teen became a savage killer
An evil lives within killer Jamie Lee Dolheguy, but was it always there or did it manifest from the years of abuse and neglect that marred her childhood.
Overland’s stunning concession in Lawyer X Royal Commission
Former police chief Simon Overland has been grilled by the Royal Commission into the Lawyer X scandal, and revealed how he kept the use of Nicola Gobbo from the state’s top prosecutors.