‘Our family has been left shattered and broken’: Bekkie-Rae Curren-Trinca’s sister speaks in court
A young mum said she feared for her life before her boyfriend beat her to death in what paramedics described as “the worst domestic violence incident they’d ever seen”.
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The family and friends of a young mum brutally bashed to death by her drug-riddled boyfriend have told how they will forever be haunted by her horrific injuries.
Warrnambool mum Bekkie-Rae Curren-Trinca, 28, was so badly beaten by Paul McDonough that her face was deformed and unrecognisable and her hair matted with blood.
Her body was covered in bruises and she had sustained fractures to her hand and two ribs, as well as spinal and head injuries.
Her sister Demi Trinca faced her sibling’s killer in Victoria’s Supreme Court on Wednesday where she revealed the trauma his actions had caused her family.
She said paramedics had described her sister’s injuries as “the worst domestic violence incident they’d ever seen”.
“The senseless, brutal and dehumanising nature of her death has left us traumatised,” she said.
“The vivid memories I have of my sister lying in hospital screaming while her brain slowly dies, has left a permanent mark on my psyche.”
Ms Trinca remembered her sister as a “beautiful and kind soul” and a “guiding light” to her family and friends, including to her daughter Emilie, who was just two years old at the time of her death.
“Our family has been left shattered and broken,” she said.
“She will never get the chance to watch her beautiful daughter grow up.”
Best friend Mira Westlake told the court it “doesn’t compute” that someone could have inflicted such horrific injuries on her friend.
“No one should ever have to see someone the way we saw our dearest Bekkie, completely beaten and bruised, unable to breathe alone, unable to think, unable to move,” she said.
The court heard McDonough, 40, had attacked Ms Curren-Trinca after coming home to find she had packed her bags and was leaving him on November 26, 2019.
Neighbours reported seeing McDonough chase her up the street as she tried to escape about 5.30pm.
But he forced her back into the house where he launched his relentless onslaught on her until she was unconscious.
He then showered her and placed her in his bed before walking to a nearby phone box to call for an ambulance.
Hours earlier Ms Curren-Trinca had told a friend of her fear that “he would kill her one day”.
In the weeks leading up to her death, Ms Curren-Trinca had also sought help at a domestic violence shelter.
In a chilling text message to McDonough a week before he attacked her, she wrote: “You hurt my face and my eye and could easily kill me.
“I get angry because my daughter needs me and you could easily take that away from her.”
McDonough was initially charged with intentionally causing serious injury after Ms Curren-Trinca was flown to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition.
But a murder charge was laid when her life support was turned off days later on December 4.
Almost three years on, and McDonough pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter on December 8 last year.
His lawyer told the court McDonough, who handed himself into police a day after the onslaught, was suffering from a “raft of complex mental health problems” at the time, including schizophrenia.
He will be sentenced at a later date.
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