Paul Bibby May 22, 2012
Sandra and David Auchterlonie at home with a photograph of their grandson David Auchterlonie in his bedroom who was killed by a relative of Ivan Milat. Photo: Brendan Esposito
The horrific sound recording of 17-year-old David Auchterlonie reeling from a brutal axe strike came without warning - a terrible guttural moan that brought shrieks of distress from the victim's family and shocked many sitting in the court.
Then came the cold, angry voice of Matthew Milat.
''See this now, this is nothing, you wanna see what I'm f---ing capable of?'' the teenage relative of Ivan Milat said.
''I'm being dead-set, Auchto, you wanna f---ing die man? You wanna fucking get in my business?''
Just before another axe strike ends his life, David Auchterlonie is heard to reply: ''I give you my word, I don't … ''
The distressing recording was the traumatic climax of a sentencing hearing for Milat and Cohen Klein in the NSW Supreme Court.
On November 20, 2010, the teenagers lured Mr Auchterlonie to Belanglo State Forest on his 17th birthday with the promise of drinking and smoking cannabis in the area where Ivan Milat murdered seven backpackers in the early 1990s.
They were joined by another teenager, Chase Day.
When they arrived at a road junction in the forest, Milat delivered a brutal blow to his former friend with a two-headed axe.
A 15-minute mobile recording of the murder made by Klein reveals that Milat then verbally tormented his victim while intermittently striking more blows with the axe.
Milat accuses Mr Auchterlonie of having dobbed him in for stealing, which the 17-year-old denies.
Mr Auchterlonie was forced to lie face down in the dirt where he repeatedly denies doing anything, before the transcript records a sound of an axe hitting him in the head.
Klein is heard telling Day to ''get back in the car'' as Day pleads with him to intervene.
The Auchterlonie family were not warned of the traumatic nature of the recording before it was played.
Once the distressing nature of the material became clear, Acting Justice Jane Mathews entreated them to leave, but they elected to stay in the court.
''They didn't just kill him, they terrorised and tormented him,'' Mr Auchterlonie's grandfather, David Auchterlonie snr, said in a victim impact statement read to the court. ''The love I have for him, and the hatred I have for those animals who took him - they deserve no mercy.''
Mr Auchterlonie's mother, Donna Locke, his grandmother Sandra Auchterlonie and his father, also named David Auchterlonie, also spoke of their grief and pain.
His father recalled the tragic symmetry of seeing his son wrapped in a white sheet at the same hospital where he had cradled him in a white blanket as a baby.
''That memory came into my mind again as he was laid out on a table. I wanted to kiss him, but I wasn't allowed because his body had become an exhibit.''
Milat sat staring down at the wood-panelled dock during the hearing while Klein looked straight ahead. Evidence tendered by the prosecution included a series of chilling poems Milat had written since his arrest.
One poem titled Cold Life, reads: ''lifeless corpse, motionless and drained/Another street has been blood stained/heart and soul I do not own/and there is no place I can call home''.
The hearing before acting Justice Jane Mathews, continues today.