The thought of her son lying out in the cold by the side of a road late at night, badly burnt and his life ebbing away after being deliberately set alight twice haunts Wade Still's mother.
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A grieving Sharon Lowe told a Newcastle Supreme Court judge on Tuesday her son had shown his fighting qualities when he revealed to a fireman in his last dying moments who had poured petrol over him and set him on fire.
In her emotional victim impact statement read to the court during a sentencing hearing for Troy McCosker, one of Mr Still's two killers, Ms Lowe asked: "Why did Wade have to die that way?"
She said she prayed to God every day to remove the hate and bitterness she felt for her son's two killers.
Mr Still, 23, died from first degree burns to 90 per cent of his body after one of the killers returned to pour more petrol over him and set him on fire for a second time.
A jury in October found McCosker, accused of helping the second man as part of a joint criminal enterprise, guilty of murder.
The second man, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to murder and was jailed for 23 years and four months with a non-parole period of 17 years and six months.
The victim's father, Rodney Still, told the court on Tuesday the second man had been a family friend who had actually called him on the day police knocked on his door to tell him his son had been murdered.
"Every day I continue to live in horror about what happened to Wade," Mr Still said.
Justice Robert Holme said the murder was "a tragedy that is unfathomable".
The second man first set fire to Mr Still in a disused quarry at Whitebridge, near Newcastle, just before 12.10am on August 20, 2018, after an argument.
An elderly couple driving home saw a badly injured and barely clothed Mr Still emerge from bushes with his arms and legs covered in mud soon after he had been burnt. He was yelling, waving his arms above his head and running towards the couple who kept driving before contacting police.
It was 1.02am when a taxi driver driving along Oakdale Road noticed a small grass fire and came across Mr Still sitting huddled on the ground barely alive.
The taxi driver, who called triple zero, asked Mr Still if he was hurt and he replied, "I am dying".
A fire officer who arrived asked Mr Still what had happened and he named the second man, saying "... (the killer) poured petrol on me".
Mr Still was airlifted by helicopter to a Sydney hospital but died on the way.
McCosker became involved in the murder when the second man rang him to pick him up at 12.30am to help him get more petrol for his motorbike.
The second man claimed the pair went to the Whitebridge cemetery where he told McCosker what he had done and asked if they should call an ambulance or finish Mr Still off before going to get the petrol.
McCosker drove the second man back to near where Mr Still was lying badly injured. McCosker stayed in the car as the second man got out and poured petrol on or near Mr Still and set him alight again.
McCosker claimed he was sitting in his car "completely oblivious" to what was happening after the second man had been gone for about five minutes. The jury did not believe him.
He will be sentenced on Wednesday.
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Australian Associated Press
