A MOUNT Gambier man was sentenced to life imprisonment last Friday after beating his partner to death in 2018.
Earlier this year Bradley Trussell, 30, was found guilty of murdering his 25-year-old girlfriend Eden Kennett in the state’s Supreme Court.
His sentence has a non-parole period of 20 years dated from December 13, 2018.
During sentencing, Justice Anne Bampton labelled the relationship between the victim and Trussell as dysfunctional, unstable, domestically violent and marked by drug use.
According to sentencing remarks, Trussell was angry at Ms Kennett being out of bed and on Trussell’s phone on the morning of December 13.
Trussell got out of bed and confronted Ms Kennett in the kitchen and was angry that she refused to tell him what she was doing.
A verbal argument took place and she refused to leave the house despite Trussell’s wishes.
He then engaged in the fatal beating which consisted of “multiple applications of force” to Ms Kennett’s head and body, front and back and included force sufficient enough to lacerate her liver and fracture her ribs.
“Whilst beating Ms Kennett you formed the specific intention, which intention did not change, to cause her at least really serious bodily harm,” Justice Bampton said.
“At the time you were performing the acts of violence with that intention you caused the liver laceration which caused her death.”
Justice Bampton also stated Trussell gave evidence about how Ms Kennett was “seizuring and convulsing” on the floor of the kitchen and how he “smoked a cone” because he believed she was faking it.
“You [Trussell] said you left her on the ground for about five minutes and then you rushed to see if she was okay,” Justice Bampton said.
“You said she was unresponsive so you picked her up and put her on the edge of the bed.
“You then carried her to the shower, dropping her twice whilst she was still unconscious.”
She said Trussell showered Ms Kennett to stop her from seizuring, yet she was still unresponsive.
Trussell then took Ms Kennett to his sister’s house before taking her to hospital.
Closed-circuit television footage showed Trussell’s sister arriving at Mount Gambier and District Hospital at 6.46am on December 13, retrieving a wheelchair and leaving towards the car park, before arriving again with Ms Kennett.
Following Ms Kennett’s arrival, hospital records show a code blue was called, and extensive bruising to her body and face was noted by hospital personnel.
It was also recorded that a CT scan and surgical review was performed later that morning which showed Ms Kennett’s situation as a severe and probably irrecoverable head injury with likely intra-abdominal bleeding from the liver.
Ms Kennett was flown to the Royal Adelaide Hospital at 3pm that day and died the following morning.
