Paul Cohrs jailed for 30 years for ‘abhorrent’ murder of elderly mother

A former deputy mayor has been jailed for three decades for shooting dead his 81-year-old mother in cold blood after she sided with his brother in a long-running family dispute.

Former Wentworth Shire Council deputy mayor Paul Cohrs has been jailed for 30 years for murdering his mother. Picture: David Crosling

A former deputy mayor has been jailed for 30 years over the cold-blooded shooting murder of his elderly mother after she sided with his brother in a long-running family dispute.

Supreme Court judge Lesley Taylor sentenced Paul Cohrs on Wednesday for his “abhorrent” offending after he was found guilty of killing his mother Bette Cohrs-Schulz, 81, at her Red Cliffs home, south of Mildura, on October 30, 2018.

She ordered he spend at least 23 years behind bars before being eligible for parole.

Cohrs, 65, stormed his mother’s property armed with a 12-gauge double barrel shotgun and shot her in the chest while she was in the kitchen about 11.30am.

She was looking after her four-year-old great-grandson, who was in the bathroom and came outside to find her bloodied body on the floor.

“Your offending was very grave,” Justice Taylor said, adding that it was a “premeditated and planned act in the home on an elderly woman”.

“Your primary motivation in killing your mother was anger and embitterment at her support of your brother, whom you perceived was attacking your financial wellbeing.”

Paul Cohrs’ killing spree began when he shot his brother, Raymond, dead. Picture: Ian Currie

The court heard the ex-Wentworth Shire deputy mayor’s killing spree began when he shot dead his brother, Raymond, some 100km away at his rural NSW family homestead, Lake Victoria Station, earlier that day.

A disgruntled Cohrs met his brother at the gates to the property about 10am after being alerted he had arranged for real estate agent Michael Fernandez to attend and undertake appraisals, as part of a plan to sell a series of properties, owned by the family companies., to meet a $2.7 million bank debt.

Cohrs believed he was entitled to the homestead and did not want it sold.

He had also accused his brother of stealing money from the family’s multimillion-dollar businesses and attempting to cheat him out of his share of the moneys.

After shooting his brother, he used handcuffs to restrain Mr Fernandez in a shearing shed, taking his phone so he could not alert authorities.

He then drove to his mother’s home to shoot her.

Following the double shooting, Cohrs made multiple calls to confess.

“It’s done, it’s over. I’ve shot them both,” he told his son in a call at 12.21pm.

He also tried to phone Red Cliffs and Mildura police stations, but after being met with automated recordings, he called Triple 0 to report his mother’s shooting.

At 12.28pm, he again revealed his horror actions in a call to his daughter, telling her “I am at peace with what I’ve done”.

Eight minutes later, he phoned his solicitors and left a voicemail, saying, “It appears the court case is over. I just shot Raymond dead and I’ve also shot my mother dead.”

He was referring to the ongoing civil lawsuits the brothers had launched against each other in the Supreme Court in 2016.

Justice Taylor said Mrs Cohrs-Schulz was an innocent victim who had not been involved in the business dealings for some years, and was not part of the civil action between her two sons.

She said Mrs Cohrs-Schulz had feared her son would kill her, as she had sided with Raymond in his feud with Paul over the running of the family’s companies.

In 2018, she told her son-in-law: “If I was known to be terminal with something, I would shoot him for what he is doing to Raymond and the family.”

Cohrs’ relationship with his brother began to sour in 2012, the same year he had became deputy mayor of Wentworth Shire in New South Wales.

In the years that followed, people who knew Cohrs observed “oddities” in his behaviour, including increasing paranoia.

He would refuse to speak about council business on the telephone and he believed the council building was bugged.

Such was his behaviour that the mayor removed him from his deputy position by early 2015.

Cohrs had planned to take his own life, leaving a suicide note to his family, as part of his shooting rampage.

He pulled the trigger on himself as police confronted him, but survived.

As the officers administered first aid to the gunshot wound to his chest, he said: “I’ve just killed my brother and my mother … they were two of the most evilest people in the world.”

He then added that it was “worth it”.

Justice Taylor made it clear that her sentence was only over the killing of Mrs Cohrs-Schulz, with Cohrs to face a NSW court over his brother’s murder.