Grief-stricken dad asks:'How can you not get life?'
AN EVIL mum who drugged and murdered her two sons should have been jailed for life, the boys' father says.
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AN EVIL mum who drugged and murdered her two sons should have been jailed for life, the boys' father says.
Donna Fitchett, 51, yesterday was jailed for 27 years, with a minimum of 18 years, for the "chilling, callous murders" of Thomas, 11, and Matthew, 9.
"How can you not get life for taking two innocent lives, under any circumstance?" ex-husband David Fitchett pleaded to the Herald Sun.
Earlier, outside court, a grief-stricken Mr Fitchett choked back tears as he said: "My boys. I love them, I miss them."
Fitchett has already served five years, meaning she could be released as early as 2023.
Prosecutors had wanted her jailed for life, which would have made her the only woman in Victoria serving a life term.
In 2008, Fitchett was sentenced to a hospital security order of 24 years, with a non-parole period of 18 years, for the murders. She successfully appealed, and faced a retrial.
"Having been through the ordeal twice, and seeking what I thought was justice for my boys after the first one (trial), going through the appeal process has been an absolute nightmare and a horrendous time in my life," Mr Fitchett said outside court.
"Thomas and Matthew deserve justice. Life by two was the only thing that would satisfy me."
Fitchett drugged then strangled or smothered her boys at their Balwyn North home on September 6, 2005.
Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Rapke, QC, said the sentence was under review. He said all sentences passed in the higher courts were reviewed.
At both trials, Fitchett pleaded not guilty owing to mental impairment.
Mr Fitchett has given the Herald Sun permission to publish a transcript of his harrowing phone call to 000 in the minutes after he found his sons cold in their beds. It is the first time a full transcript of the call has been published.
During the call, Mr Fitchett frantically tried to resuscitate the boys.
Donna Fitchett, who had slashed her wrists, called out: "I don't want to live."
In sentencing, Supreme Court judge Justice Elizabeth Curtain said Fitchett's crimes were "truly appalling and offensive to civilised society".
"You were their mother. Your responsibility was to nurture, care for, love and protect them," Justice Curtain said.
But in the greatest act of betrayal, Fitchett had robbed them of their lives, because "in an act of unfathomable selfishness, you came to the view that, in your words, 'you couldn't and wouldn't ever abandon them'."
Justice Curtain said she sentenced Fitchett on the basis that at the time she had mild to moderate depression.
David Fitchett looked down and wept during sentencing.
Fitchett had left her husband a letter saying she couldn't abandon "our beautiful boys". "I've been dead for a few days. I just wanted peace," she wrote.
"I overdosed the boys and when they were asleep I suffocated them and then strangled them in case they woke up.
"They put up a bit of a struggle but said nothing. They didn't know it was me or it was happening to each other.
"They were happy this morning, said they loved you and had a great Father's Day.
"I pray I don't live through this."
In the first trial, revenge over her unsatisfactory marriage was put forward as her motive.
In a letter to a psychologist on the day of the murders, Fitchett wrote: "Sadly I'm too broken to go on. Today the boys will be given an overdose as I cannot and wouldn't ever abandon them.
"They think we are going on an exciting trip today but I've told them they need to take some medicine so they won't get air-sick.
"I'm not a coward, nor am I crazy. I see this as my greatest act of love."
Justice Curtain said life sentences would not be appropriate because of Fitchett's mental illness, and principles that state a sentence imposed in a first trial should be viewed as the upper limit of the sentence to be imposed after a retrial.
Fitchett is in a psychiatric unit at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.
At least two other Victorian female prisoners are serving the same minimum term as Fitchett.
