Sean Price sentenced for murder of schoolgirl Masa Vukotic
BREAKING: Sean Price jailed for life with 38-year minimum term for the murder of Masa Vukotic.
THE killer of Melbourne schoolgirl Masa Vukotic has been jailed for a life with a non-parole period of 38 years.
The prosecution has urged Justice Lex Lasry to lock Price away forever for the stabbing murder that happened almost exactly a year ago.
Justice Lasry on Friday said he had tried, but failed, to understand the catastrophic decision to release Price, a convicted rapist, into the community in 2014 while he was supposed to be subject to a 10-year supervision order.
Ms Vukotic, 17, was on an evening walk when she was attacked by Price, who was on bail at the time. He has pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Vukotic on March 17 and raping a woman the next day, robbing a man of his mobile phone and attempting to steal a BMW.
After he was arrested Price told police he selected Ms Vukotic as his victim because she was talking to a bird “like f***ing Snow White”.
Justice Lasry watched Price’s entire record of interview and said it was “chilling, pathetic and sad”.
He said he feared Price’s mental condition would only get worse, reported The Herald Sun.
Despite that, he found Price was not psychotic or impaired at the time of murder.
Justice Lasry told Price he had committed “horrendous crimes”.
“Your act of killing her was at the extremity of brutality.”
During the police interview, Price told how he had been thinking of killing someone for days and armed himself with a large knife was hidden in his sock.
“I was looking, looking and I just thought, f**k this, this is the moment. This one just ended up being the one, I just f***n’ had to kill her, man.”
Ms Vukotic was listening to music on her earphones when the attack began.
Ms Vukotic was dragged into bushes and begged him not to hurt her. Price ignored her and stabbed her 49 times.
“I just f****n’ just started ripping and stabbing and f***ing just stabbing”, he told detectives.
Later, he said she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He then went onto detail his motivations further, telling police he had wanted to stab someone because “I just hated society”.
“I just thought I’m going to stab and I’m going to hurt these f****** dogs. So I thought originally, look for rich areas. I thought rich areas, these f*****g c**** they don’t care unless it happens to them, unless it’s in their society.”
Price has multiple previous convictions for rapes, indecent assaults, robbery and violence dating back to 2002.
In the interviews with police, that were made public during a pre-sentence hearing in December, Price told police of the “rush” he got when attacking women.
“It’s the biggest high ever,” he said of the attacks.
“My intentions were evil. Just the fact that you’re a deviant when you’re doing it, that’s what really gets you off.”
Before she was killed Ms Vukotic had dinner with her family and finished her homework, which was her usual pattern.
At 6.30pm her mother headed out to pick up her brother from soccer training and Masa said she was going for a walk. She was told to take her phone and house keys, but it was a walk she would never return from.
andrew.koubaridis@news.com.au