Luay Sako pleads guilty to murdering Celeste Manno

Celeste Manno’s mother has stared down the “demon” who stabbed her 23-year-old daughter to death and says “I still can’t believe he’s actually pleaded guilty”.

Celeste Manno was murdered in November 2020.

The heartbroken mother of Celeste Manno, stabbed to death by former co-worker Luay Sako in her bedroom, has watched on in disgust as the man pleaded guilty to her murder.

Celeste’s mum Aggie Di Mauro was in court for the plea, where she sat metres from the man who admitted to killing her daughter and stared at him the entire hearing.

“I can’t believe that this demon was actually within reach,” Ms Di Mauro said.

“I just wanted him to feel that I never took my – not for a split second – never took my eyes from him.”

Luay Sako has pleaded guilty to the murder.

In a major turnaround in the case, Sako on Thursday ­fronted the Supreme Court and pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Manno, 23, at her Mernda home on November 16, 2020.

Sako, 37, from Roxburgh Park, became obsessed with Ms Manno when they worked together at a Serco call centre in Mill Park.

He took her kindness to him on the day he was sacked as more, and began to stalk her.

She was forced to get an intervention order against him after he bombarded her with more than 150 messages from numerous Instagram accounts for about a year.

Sako would declare his misplaced love to her in the messages.

But the messages switched to vile plots of violence when she did not reciprocate.

He then smashed his way into her home and stabbed her to death as she slept. The entire time in court, Ms Di Mauro said she was flooded with visions of Celeste and kept thinking, “God sweetheart, this repulsive human took you away”.

Celeste Manno was stabbed to death as she slept.

“Today, staring at him, all I kept thinking was ‘How could you literally, savagely, brutally kill someone who so sweetly asked you to please leave her alone?’

“She didn’t know this individual,” said Ms Di Mauro.

“How dare you feel so entitled that you can just take her away from me.”

Despite never taking her eyes from him, she said the man, who she labelled “a repulsive excuse for a human being”, never looked her way in the courtroom.

Aggie Di Mauro with her daughter Celeste.

It was the first time Ms Di Mauro had attended court, along with her sisters, son and Celeste’s father.

“I had to hear it with my own ears – he did enter a guilty plea,” she said.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen his face in the flesh so it was just really difficult to sit there.

“I still can’t believe he’s actually pleaded guilty given he’s been trying to avoid conviction altogether.”

Immediately after the court hearing, Aggie and her sisters visited Celeste’s gravesite to see her daughter.

Celeste’s mother Aggie Di Mauro and her brother Alessandro. Picture: Jason Edwards

The major turnaround comes after Sako previously indicated through his lawyers that he would be pleading not guilty by way of the mental impairment defence.

Two psychiatrists had last year deemed him unfit for trial.

But a three-day fitness hearing in February was vacated after further assessments in December and January found he was now fit to face a jury.

Defence barrister Sam Norton then told the court he was no longer able to advance his mental impairment arguments given the new medical expert reports.

Dates were set for Mr Norton to seek further instructions from his client, before a trial date would be fixed for later in the year.

When the case returned on Thursday, Sako’s lawyer told judicial registrar Tim Freeman the case had resolved.

Sako was formally arraigned, saying “guilty” when asked how he pleaded to the single charge of murder.

His plea will be a huge relief for Ms Manno’s family, who have been strong advocates for change to stalking offences and intervention orders since her death.

An earlier court heard how Sako had been refusing to take his medications while on remand, believing he was being poisoned.

He has been held in an isolation unit away from other inmates since he was arrested, with concerns also of self-harm.

Sako will return to court for a mention on April 19.