A NSW woman who lured her partner to his death using mashed potato was jailed on Friday afternoon for at least eight years.
Sarah Renea Tarrant, 27, wanted out of her relationship with Alois Rez, 33, the NSW Supreme Court heard.
The Dubbo woman hatched a plot with 54-year-old Raymond Isaac Roff. The plan, which the pair carried out in July 2013, was that Tarrant would crush sleeping pills into Mr Rez’s dinner and Roff would do the rest.
After monitoring her partner throughout the night, Tarrant enlisted Roff to kill the 33-year-old and dispose of his body. Roff entered the couple’s home around 2am where the murder took place, police say.
Roff then loaded the body into his vehicle, drove to a location between Dubbo and Nyngan, and dumped it. Mr Rez’s body has never been found.
For his part in the crime, Roff was sentenced to 24 years. On Friday, Tarrant was sentenced to a maximum jail term of 10 years and eight months for manslaughter. She had previously avoided a murder charge.
Justice Desmond Fagan said Roff and Tarrant began an affair in March 2013, writing each other love letters in which he declared he wanted to marry her and promised to be a good husband.
Mr Rez, a family friend of Roff’s, had been in a relationship with Tarrant since she was 15, but she was unhappy with him, saying he demeaned and criticised her, was lazy and demanding.
In May 2013, she told Roff she wanted Mr Rez “gone”, meaning she wanted him dead.
“The passion which the offender came to feel for Sarah Tarrant from late 2012 unhinged his judgment,” the judge said.
He said Roff had shown no remorse. He continues to deny responsibility for the crime despite police uncovering the pair’s murder plans through phone records and the presence of blood in Roff’s car.
Physciatrist Dr Yvonne Skinner has previously told the court that Tarrant suffered from depression and a dependent personality disorder.
But Justice Fagan said the impairment of her facilities was “barely suffice” to satisfy a jury that she was not guilty.
— with AAP
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