Wife killer Sestilio Cavallari to walk
A MAN who butchered his wife in front of their young daughter is to be released back into the community.
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A MAN who butchered his wife in front of their young daughter is to be released back into the community.
Instead of prison, Sestilio Cavallari, 62, has spent six years inside a psychiatric hospital after being found not guilty of murdering de facto wife Susan Wood by reason of mental impairment.
Cavallari had no history of psychiatric illness before the 2010 attack, and doctors say he is well on the way to an ultimate discharge from hospital.
The 62-year-old is already enjoying unescorted day leave from Thomas Embling Hospital and is living outside its walls in its lowest-security unit. In a bid to slip unnoticed back into society Cavallari tried to have his name and any details of his case banned from publication.
The move was opposed by the Attorney-General and this week rejected by the Supreme Court, which ruled suppressing details of the case was not in the public interest.
Cavallari brutally attacked Ms Wood as their daughter watched, stabbing her 37 times in the face, neck, chest, back and arms. She begged her daughter for help, and she tried to stop her dad’s assault before calling 000.
She then found her mother lying on the kitchen floor and said to her dad: “How could you do this? You killed her.”
Cavallari replied: “I know, I know, but she was going to kill me.”
He was found unfit to be interviewed and a judge later found at the time of the killing he was not able to reason that what he was doing was wrong.
Shortly before the killing he had tried to buy a return ticket to Italy and told the travel agent: “Something bad is going to happen and I’ve got to go.”