Steve Fesus to be sentenced over cold case murder of teenage bride

MORE than 20 years after Jodie Fesus was found slain in a partially uncovered grave, her killer has been jailed for at least 16 years.

Jodie Fesus was found buried in Seven Mile Beach National Park camping ground following anonymous phone call.

A FORMER bouncer has been jailed for at least 16-and-a-half years for strangling his teenage bride, whose body was buried in a shallow grave on a NSW beach more than two decades ago.

Steve Frank Fesus, 47, was found guilty last year of murdering Jodie Fesus, 18, in August 1997 at their Shellharbour home on the NSW South Coast before burying her body in a shallow grave at Seven Mile Beach, near Gerroa. In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Peter Johnson jailed Fesus for 22 years, with a non-parole period of 16 years and six months.

“He murdered his very young wife at a time of marital strain after just three months of marriage,” he said.

Despite his continued denial of the crime, Justice Johnson said he was satisfied Fesus strangled or choked his wife to death during an argument. She was unhappy in the relationship and wanted to leave Fesus, who had “acted on his attraction towards other women, both before and after Jodie’s death”.

Having attacked her in anger, he then acted in a “cool and calculated way” by placing her body in the back of their car, burying her at a remote location and then maintaining she had disappeared.

Before her body was found, he made a “significant slip” when later filling out a pension application form by indicating his wife was dead and not missing. The judge was satisfied it was Fesus who made anonymous calls to police about the location of her body after he partly uncovered it.

Fesus had “reeked havoc on the entire family” and had not treated his wife’s body with dignity or respect.

Steven Fesus was found guilty of murdering his wife Jodi in their Shellharbour home in August 1997. Picture: Toby Zerna