Lauren Wilson | September 29, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A VICTORIAN man who was sentenced to hang four decades ago, has been found guilty today of the murder of his girlfriend.
It took a Victorian Supreme Court jury about one hour to find 61-year-old Leigh Robinson guilty of the shotgun murder of his partner, 33 year-old mother of two Tracey Greenbury.
Robinson, a driver from Pearcedale on the Mornington Peninsula, had pleaded not guilty to the murder.
He told the court he had accidentally discharged a sawn-off shotgun when he went to help Ms Greenbury, as she stumbled through the doorway of a neighbour's home in April last year.
But Crown prosecutor Peter Rose SC, dismissed as “fanciful” his explanation for why he had pursued Ms Greenbury down the street to a neighbour's house and shot her in the head at close range.
Mr Rose called the killing a “cold blooded execution.”
Robinson was previously sentenced to death by hanging for the 1968 murder of his former girlfriend Valerie Dunn. The sentence was later commuted at the request of the Victorian Governor.
He will be sentenced for the murder of Ms Greenbury at a date to be fixed.
- with AAP
Gut instinct, I am opposed to the death penalty, however cases like this lead to me questioning whether there is a place for it.
On the other hand WA has shocking record of knowingly convicting innocent people for the sake of convenience so which way should we go on the question of reintroducing the death penalty? |