Juan Gonzalez, 77, murdered ex-girlfriend because she ‘called him too much’
A 77-year-old man who killed his ex-girlfriend and left her daughter to make the horrific discovery provided a callous excuse for his crime.
A elderly man shot his former partner with a double-barrel shotgun and then claimed he did it because she called him too much.
Juan Gonzalez was 76 when he fired his shotgun at his former girlfriend Than Truong in the kitchen of her St Albans home in May 2021.
The Argentinian-born man shot her twice in the head and neck before fleeing the scene on the evening of May 20.
The 48-year-old’s adult daughter made the gruesome discovery shortly after the murder.
Gonzalez handed himself in to police the same night as the murder and made a shocking excuse for the crime.
“You said she had been calling you from a private number and you were sick of the calls,” Justice Amanda Fox said in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Thursday.
She jailed the 77-year-old for 24 years in after he pleaded guilty to Ms Truong’s murder.
The judge noted because of his age and terminal cancer Gonzalez would likely die in jail.
The explanation for the crime was difficulty to accept and days before the crime the pair were messaging each other, she said.
“There is nothing to suggest that you wanted her to leave you alone or that you asked her to leave you alone,” Justice Fox said.
Ms Truong ended the pair’s relationship because she found Gonzalez was controlling and overbearing, the court was told.
“You travelled to her residence uninvited and brutally killed her in her own home, a place where she should have been safe,” Justice Fox said.
She said it was premeditated, planned and the placement of shots showed Gonzalez intended to kill his former girlfriend.
He concealed the weapon near her unit in a bid to avoid attention.
“You left her lying dead on her kitchen floor to be found by friends or family,” she said.
When in prison he admitted he was angry at the time he killed the “entirely innocent and utterly defenceless” woman.
“It is that simple and that callous,” Justice Fox said.
The horrific crime traumatised her two adult children and they were left devastated by her death, the court was told.
Gonzalez must serve at least 17 years before he is eligible for parole.