The man, who can only be identified by the pseudonym 'Stone', pleaded guilty to the murder of Wade Still at a disused quarry on Oakdale Road at Whitebridge in 2018. The judge described it as a "brazen act of extreme, cruel and sadistic violence".

Stone had offered to give evidence at the trial of his co-accused, Troy McCosker, and, as a result, was given the pseudonym and a combined discount of 35 per cent on his sentence.

On Friday, McCosker was found guilty of murder.

The Newcastle Herald can now reveal that on October 6, on the eve of McCosker's trial, Stone was jailed for a maximum of 23 years and four months, with a non-parole period of 17 years and six months.

Stone - who appeared in court with two black eyes and a large gash across his head after inmates at Parklea Correctional Centre attacked him with a sandwich maker - would have been jailed for a maximum of 36 years had it not been for his guilty plea and offer of assistance.

The sentence means the man responsible for arguably the Hunter's worst murder in recent memory will be eligible for parole in February, 2036.

McCosker - who pleaded not guilty and will receive no discount on his sentence - could end up serving a longer jail term despite never getting out of his car. He will face a sentence hearing in December.

During a sentence hearing in Newcastle Supreme Court on October 1, Stone repeatedly claimed that the first time he set Mr Still on fire was "an accident".

Mr Still, 23, had splashed some petrol on him and that he lashed out, kicking a bucket of fuel directly at his friend, who was standing near a grass fire.

As Mr Still was engulfed in flames and screaming in pain, Stone jump-started a motorbike and took off into the night.

The second time he set Mr Still on fire, after Mr Still had been alone, writhing in agony and screaming for help for about an hour, it was deliberate, Stone weighing up his options whether to call an ambulance or "finish this prick off".

It was an "objectively sadistic and callous act" and Mr Still died in "one of the worst ways imaginable", Justice Robert Hulme said when sentencing Stone on October 6. "The deliberateness of the conscious choice [whether to kill Mr Still or not] was exemplified by going away to get the petrol, returning and immediately pouring it over the helpless victim," Justice Hulme said.

"He could quite easily have had an ambulance alerted to Mr Still's plight. There is no clear motive for the offender doing what he did. His barrister described it as senseless. I think that is appropriate. Either that or there is a lot more to the story than has been disclosed."

Crown prosecutor Lee Carr, SC, had submitted that Stone was a candidate for a life sentence, provided Justice Hulme found the first incident when Mr Still was set alight was deliberate.

"I do not see it in the same way," Justice Hulme said. "The fact that he returned to finish him off is such a brazen, cruel and sadistic act of violence that it does not matter if the first act was intentional."

Justice Hulme found that it was a "most heinous act of its type" and in the worst category for an offence of murder, but was not satisfied that a life sentence was appropriate.

In the days before Mr Still was burned to death, he stole a bag out of McCosker's car.

Two men, Stone and Jake McCulloch, got the blame and set about rectifying things by tracking down Mr Still and returning the bag to McCosker.

In the car together and while discussing what could be done about Mr Still, Stone told Mr McCulloch "he should be knocked".

But the theft did not rise to the level of a motive for Mr Still's death and while Justice Hulme found that Stone had indeed uttered those words in the days before he murdered Mr Still, he did not find that, at that point, he had actually formed the intention to kill him.

Around that time Mr Still had been after a car float and it was late on the night of August 19, 2018, when Stone agreed to take Mr Still to see one that he could borrow.

Stone asked Mr Still to bring some petrol to refuel his motorbike and the pair met on the Pacific Highway before Mr Still jumped on the back of Stone's unregistered bike. Freezing cold and out of fuel, they stopped at an isolated and dark quarry on Oakdale Road.

The pair pushed the bike about 250 metres into the quarry to rest it against an abandoned boat so they could refuel it, Stone said.

They were on good terms, sharing a cigarette and some Xanax and Stone claims he even offered Mr Still his jacket because he was cold.

Instead of just riding on, they used some of the fuel to start a grass fire to keep warm, Stone claims.

But at some point, after about 15 minutes, they stopped speaking and things soured, at least in the drug-addled mind of Stone. It was around then that Stone claims Mr Still splashed some fuel on him and he reacted by immediately kicking a bucket of fuel directly at Mr Still. With Mr Still on fire and screaming in pain, Stone fled on the bike.

Justice Hulme said despite being "troubled" by much of the account that Stone gave about that first incident, he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Stone had taken Mr Still to the quarry with the intention of killing him. Stone then called McCosker to pick him up. At some point, the pair spoke and McCosker told Stone that he was at the same quarry as Mr Still.

But despite Stone claiming in his evidence that he wanted to get help for Mr Still, he did not tell McCosker about Mr Still's grave condition or what had happened until the pair met up.

Even then, they drove away from the quarry, bizarrely visiting a cemetery in the middle of the night, before Stone told McCosker about the plight of Mr Still.

They returned to the quarry, finding Mr Still on the ground by the side of the road.

"I said 'what do you want to do'," Stone later said in an interview with detectives. "That is when I made the bad decision; should I ring the ambulance or we've got to finish this prick off."

He left Mr Still there again, but would soon return with another jerry can full of fuel which he poured over Mr Still and set him alight.

Mr Still was later found by a passing taxi driver who had noticed the grass fire.

The 23-year-old, the taxi driver said, was screaming and repeating the words: "I'm dying, I'm dying".

"He must have been in the most excruciating agony," Justice Hulme said.

Stone admitted intending to kill Mr Still the second time, but denied actually pouring the petrol directly onto him, saying he poured it on the ground between them before lighting it.

Justice Hulme was not convinced.

"Despite his denials I am satisfied that he poured petrol directly onto Wade Still," he said. "Later, as he lay dying, Mr Still said to a firefighter "[Stone] poured petrol on me."

As well as that dying declaration, which meant Mr Still had essentially helped catch his own killer, Mr Still's DNA was found on the spout and the jerry can used in the second attack.

During a sentence hearing for Stone in September, Mr Still's parents, Sharon Lowe and Rodney Still, read emotional victim impact statements.

"Every thought of my son Wade is now replaced with an unbearable pain that petrifies my thoughts daily," Ms Lowe said.

"The mental vision of my son laying on the cold ground, burnt and bleeding, the sound of his voice pleading for help as his life force drains from his body is all I can think about.

"Why did Wade have to die that way? I just don't understand why would [Stone] want to end a life that was not his to take."

In his interview with detectives and while giving evidence, Stone was unable to explain what was going through his mind at the time.

"If I wasn't off my face I would have been calling an ambulance," Stone said in a police interview, referring to his drug use.

"But I was not in the right state of mind so I just thought 'get rid of anything and everything'."