Katie Haley murder: Man admits killing partner with deadly blow
THE family of a murdered young mum has fought back tears in court today as her partner admitted bashing her to death with a deadly blow to her head.
Law & Order
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A JEALOUS boyfriend was warned by his mother minutes before he bludgeoned his partner to death: “Don’t do anything silly”.
Shane Robertson, 28, even replied to the chilling text at 10.12pm saying, “I won’t”.
But 34 minutes later and young mother of two Katie Haley was dead.
ANGRY FAMILY SAY ‘EVIL ACT’ TOOK AWAY YOUNG MUM
Robertson had picked up a dumbbell and struck her to the head five times as she sat on her son’s bed in their Diggers Rest home on the evening of March 9.
Ms Haley, 29, had been packing her bags after earlier telling him their abusive relationship was over.
Her son, 6, was not home, but the couple’s nine-month-old baby girl was.
A 10.46pm phone call Robertson made to his mum revealed the horror that had unfolded.
“I kill her mum, I kill her,” Robertson said.
“I’ve done wrong. I’ve bashed her brains in. I’ve done it. There was blood everywhere.”
He then fled the house, leaving two notes of apology and taking his baby daughter.
He was arrested by police soon after in Sunbury.
The shocking details were revealed in court documents, released to the Herald Sun, after Robertson on Tuesday pleaded guilty to murder in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.
Ms Haley’s family fought back tears as they stood in court and eyeballed their loved one’s killer as he murmured the word “guilty” from the dock.
Messages, used in police evidence, Ms Haley had sent friends and family in the months before her killing revealed the constant abuse she faced, detailing how Robertson had become more controlling and violent each day.
She spoke of how she wanted to leave him as they were fighting often and how he had punched holes in walls of the house, stopped her from talking to her male work colleagues, and made her delete her social media accounts.
Obsessed with believing she was cheating on him, he even set up fake social media accounts to try and catch her out.
“My life is fukd (sic),” she messaged a friend in January.
“All this s---- is getting to me. I can’t keep fighting. It’s draining my life. But at the same time I don’t want to be told what I can and can’t do.”
Ms Haley’s distraught family did not wish to comment outside court.
In a statement they issued soon after Ms Haley’s death, they said they had been touched by an “act of pure evil”.
“Our beautiful Katie girl, not only did we lose a much-loved daughter and sister, but two precious children lost their beautiful mother,” the family statement read.
“She did not deserve what happened to her.”
Robertson, who has the letter ‘K’ tattooed on his neck behind his right ear, will appear in the Supreme Court on Friday.