Samantha Fraser, a Melbourne mother who was killed, left behind a teenage daughter who faced her murderer in court.
On July 23, 2018, 44-year-old Adrian Basham killed his estranged wife in the garage of her parents’ Phillip Island house before making it seem as if he had committed himself.
His 13-year-old daughter Jemima appeared in front of him on Monday in Victoria’s Supreme Court to assure him that his actions would not break her.
She told Basham, who continued to complain and whine during his Supreme Court of Victoria pre-sentence hearing, “I’m here to tell you I’m a warrior.”
Ms. Fraser’s love for her kids instantly raised questions about her alleged suicide.
On Phillip Island, which is southeast of Melbourne, her beaten corpse had been discovered hanging from the garage door of her parents’ guarded Seagrove Way house.
While her parents were abroad on a vacation to the United States, Basham struck.
He allegedly entered the garage as Ms. Fraser was walking back from a buddy meeting, according to the police.
Basham’s biological material was discovered beneath Ms. Fraser’s two fingernails, according to DNA evidence.
Although Basham had consistently denied killing Ms. Fraser, it ultimately took the jury a little over a day to find him guilty of the intentional killing.
On the day their mother was killed, Jasmine, then 9 years old, was left with her younger sister April, 7, and brother Rex, 5, waiting for their mother by the school flagpole.
The kids now reside with their elderly grandparents, who also gave the murderer of their daughter strong victim impact statements.
Jasmine revealed to her father that she had traveled to court to see that her mother was given justice.
The adolescent battled back tears as she denounced her father’s heinous conduct, saying “I have suffered” three times before continuing.
She said to Basham, “I have battled anxiety and even suicidal thoughts, but I am here today to show people that I am a warrior and we will obtain justice for my mother.”
After he killed her mother, Jemima told her father about the brutal teasing she had had from other students.
One child said, “I think her mom didn’t even die and she’s just faking it to gain attention.”
“What if Jemima becomes insane like her father and murders us?” What will you do—cry to your mother about it? fatherless conduct. Go commit suicide as your mother did.
Jemima listed her three motivations for confronting her callous father.
“To have the life my mother deserves.” For myself, for my loved ones, and for my friends. In the years after my mother was abducted, I battled. Even with the help, it is quite difficult, she said.
Jemima informed Basham that it had taken her four hard months to put the words she wanted him to understand together.
“He killed my mother. He wrecked so many other lives by taking Sammy’s life. Even just the idea that my mother might be taken away in a matter of minutes, despite the boundless love she received from everyone throughout her life, makes me sick, Jemima remarked.
And it’s something another to be in court because it’s true, My whole existence was torn apart. I forfeited my mother, father, social life, and opportunity for a typical future.
The court was informed that Jemima’s younger siblings had gone through a similar ordeal, with little Rex being so terrified of his father that he built a fort in his bed during his father’s trial.
His grandmother said in court, “To keep the monsters out.”
The court heard Rex’s peers make degrading comments to him in the days leading up to Father’s Day.
According to Janine Fraser, Rex was angry when he got home from school because a kid had recommended that he write “Thanks dad for killing mom” in his Father’s Day card.
April, who is now 9 years old, said in court that her father “took the best part of her heart away.”
But the court heard Basham was still looking for justifications for murdering his wife, which was a smack in the face to his kids.
The court heard Basham assert it had been his wife who had invited him around on the day he would murder her. This was an astonishing accusation, not made before the jury that convicted him guilty.
Additionally, Basham’s attorney, Ashley Halphen, said that the beating, murder, and hanging of his estranged wife from the garage door of her parent’s house occurred “spontaneously.”
According to Mr. Halphen, “it is obvious and reasonable that he went to the household with a non-violent objective.”
In an effort to assist the Frasers in giving their kids everything they would have financially gotten to enjoy if their mother were still living, a GoFundMe page has been created.
The hearing keeps on.