In only two months, a “monster” drug addict might go free after beheading a trans woman who was trying to help her stop her habit and burying her head in a strawberry field.
Nicole Therese McGuinness killed truck driver Joanne “John” Lillecrapp in Angle Vale, Adelaide, in 2003 and was sentenced to at least 18 years in prison; however, she will be eligible for release in October.
McGuinness participated in the horrifying crime in which Ms. Lillecrapp’s mutilated corpse was buried in her own property, earning him the moniker “Strawberry Patch Killer.”
Before she was brutally murdered in November 2001, Ms. Lillecrapp had welcomed McGuinness and another drug user Donna Lee Casagrande into her house to assist them stop using drugs.
Ms. Lillecrapp was stabbed in the chest by McGuinness and Casagrande, who then burnt her head and buried the rest of her corpse after dismembering her.
When Casagrande volunteered to give herself in at a NSW police station in return for the opioid narcotic methadone, the duo fled interstate and were apprehended.
After entering a plea of guilty to manslaughter, Casagrande was freed in 2011, but she soon returned to prison for a number of theft and trespassing offences.
Early in 2021, McGuinness received her first parole; however, she recently violated the terms of her release for a second time by failing drug tests.
The court heard that after searching for herself online and reading headlines about her crime, McGuinness ended her 12-year streak of sobriety.
McGuinness reapplied for immediate release after asking to be sentenced to time served for those violations.
When setting a fresh one-year non-parole sentence on Tuesday, the court backdated it to October of the previous year, when McGuinness was taken retro into jail.
She will thus be qualified for parole once again in around two months.
In July, Ms. Lillecrapp’s distraught brother Ron delivered his victim impact to the court, describing McGuinness as “a dangerous, unpredictable piece of work.”
At the time, he told the court, “I’m in complete amazement at the proposal of her releasing into the community.”
I worry that this monster believes she can be rehabilitated into society, since every time she has had the opportunity, she has gone to narcotics and committed crimes again.
“I wish there was a way to articulate exactly what I believe, but I cannot express enough how this has touched my life and the lives of others.
“I’m upset, irritated, and annoyed.”
For the rest of my life, I will have to live with it. Who is serving a life sentence here, then?
On Tuesday, Mr. Lillecrapp told Nine News that his victim impact statement had been severely edited and that he had intended to express his sentiments about McGuinness much more.
She isn’t what I would call human, but I was not authorised to say that, he continued.
“(My sister/brother) needs someone to stand out for him since he isn’t here to do it himself, and I am that person,” the speaker says.