Black Widow Vasiliki ‘Vicky’ Efandis fed her lover sleeping pills, then left him to burn

BLACK Widow Vicky Efandis weaseled her way into her lover’s life, took over his finances, then fed him a drugged dinner and left him to die.

Supreme Court. Vasiliki 'Vicki' Efandis was found guilty of murdering her partner George Marcetta.

A SUPREME Court judge said her crime was evil, cold-hearted, merciless and driven by pure greed.

Black Widow Vasiliki “Vicky” Efandis, was a separated mother who claimed a disability pension and worked as a house cleaner.

The female black widow spider is known to eat the male after mating.

It was this occupation that enabled her, at age 44 in 2002, to creep into the life of George Marcetta, a 56-year-old divorced father who ran a very successful painting business.

Through fake affection, Efandis stole the lonely man’s heart.

As Efandis infiltrated Mr Marcetta’s life, they began a relationship.

The dominating, manipulative and scheming Efandis took control of his business and financial affairs.

On September 8, 2004, Mr Marcetta’s charred body was found in the burnt-out bedroom of his fire-ravaged home.

Toxicology tests revealed he’d been drugged.

Efandis was arrested and charged with murder.

She spent some time in jail and faced a committal hearing at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, during which a friend of Mr Marcetta, Zoran Obradovic, said Efandis controlled the purse strings.

“George (told me), ‘I can’t lend you any money because Vicky is controlling the money’,” Mr Obradovic told the preliminary hearing.

In a police statement tendered at the committal hearing, a former prisoner who shared a cell with Efandis said another inmate drew a picture of a black spider on a pinboard in their cell where Efandis allegedly confessed to murder.

In her statement the former prisoner said: “Vicky asked me one night, ‘Do you think I lit the fire?’ I said to her, ‘Well did you?’ Vicky said, ‘It was arranged. We did it but they’ve got nothing.’ She told me the fire at the house had been planned for a few months.”

The former prisoner said she believed Efandis had tried to poison her in jail by slipping rat poison or snail bait into her tea.

At the end of the committal proceeding, Efandis pleaded not guilty to murder.

She was granted bail pending her 2008 Supreme Court trial.

The jury was told Efandis took control of her partner’s finances and on the night of September 8, 2004, laced a home-cooked meal with sedatives and left Mr Marcetta to die in his burning Bellfield home.

For his last supper, Efandis had cooked Mr Marcetta his favourite dish — pork rolls and noodles.

She laced it with a large dose of the sedative Serapax.

In the preceding months her doctor had twice prescribed her Serapax, Prosecutor John Champion, SC, told the jury.

After drugging Mr Marcetta, who ended up in his bed, Efandis then splashed up to 28 litres of kerosene around the home and lit small newspaper fires in nearly every room.

By that stage, Mr Champion told the court, Efandis had come to be in control of a large amount of Mr Marcetta’s assets and stood to gain financially from his death.

Mr Marcetta had sold his Dandenong home and entered into a joint contract to purchase the Bellfield property, which was registered in Efandis’s name.

She’d gained a 50 per cent share of his business and convinced him to register a Jaguar car in her daughter’s name.

“Over a relatively short period of time Vicky Efandis insinuated herself into George Marcetta’s personal and business life, and business affairs, to the extent where she became a controlling and dominant figure,” Mr Champion told the jury.

Efandis had told police that, on the night of the fire, she left the house between 10pm and 10.30pm and, from her home in Ivanhoe, sent Mr Marcetta a goodnight text to which he replied with a text of his own.

But a telecommunications expert told the court both messages were sent from the Bellfield home.

Efandis tried to blame the murder on a man who’d previously argued with Mr Marcetta, the court was told.

Defence lawyer Campbell Thomson said the prosecution team was “trying to weave together different threads to form a rope they will seek to hang Vicky with”.

After three days of deliberation, the jury agreed upon a guilty verdict.

In November 2008, Justice Stephen Kaye sentenced Efandis to 24 years’ jail with a 20-year minimum.

Justice Kaye described the crime as chilling, saying that while Mr Marcetta was very fond of Efandis she had “no sentimental attachment to him at all”.

“Rather,” Justice Kaye told Efandis, “you insinuated your way into his life, gained his trust and then abused it in the most appalling way. You resorted to lacing his favourite meal with the sleeping tablets, in order to prepare him for his death.

“It was only fortuitous that Mr Marcetta did not survive long in the fire. However, you were not to know that.

“By drugging him and then setting fires around him, you potentially condemned him to die helplessly in the midst of a horrifying inferno.”

Efandis showed no emotion as the judge described her greed-driven crime as evil.

“You showed no pity to your unwitting victim,” Justice Kaye said, “and you clearly suffered no pangs of conscience as you set about murdering him.

“(It) can only be described as chilling ...(You) callously exploited his attraction to and affection for you in order to murder him for his wordily assets.”

Mr Marcetta’s daughter, Athanasia Marcetta, cried in court.

Outside afterwards, Ms Marcetta said Efandis was a ruthless, greedy and cold-blooded killer.

“She deserves everything she got,” Ms Marcetta said.

Earlier this year, the Court of Appeal refused an application lodged by Efandis for an extension of time in which to lodge notice of application for leave to appeal against her conviction.

Justice Mark Weinberg said in part: “When one has regard to the totality of the evidence led at the trial, and adds to it the significant and proven lies told by the applicant ... we are left with a case that cannot possibly be characterised as weak.

“The jury were perfectly entitled to come to a verdict of guilt, and it would have been surprising had they not done so.

“It follows, for the reasons set out ... that this application for an extension of time should be refused.”

Justice Paul Coghlan agreed.