SA: Man, lover to spend at least 30 years in jail over hit

AAP General News (Australia)
04-02-2004
SA: Man, lover to spend at least 30 years in jail over hit

By Steve Larkin

ADELAIDE, April 2 AAP - A man and his lover who murdered the wife keeping them apart
were today given the longest non-parole periods ever handed down in South Australia.

Kevin Matthews, 43, and 30-year-old Michelle Burgess will serve at least 30 years of
their life sentences.

The pair showed no remorse for hiring a hitman to kill Carolyn Matthews so their affair
could continue, Justice Margaret Nyland said in the SA Supreme Court.

In SA, convicted murderers are automatically sentenced to life in prison and submissions
are made to establish a non-parole period.

Matthews and Burgess were earlier found guilty of the July 2001 murder of Mrs Matthews.

She was stabbed to death in her western Adelaide home by a hitman while Matthews and
their three sons were at a video store.

When they returned, the children found their mother's bloodied body on the kitchen floor.

Justice Nyland said Matthews had allowed his children to find their mother's body.

"This was ... a premeditated, heartless and brutal crime," Justice Nyland said.

"This was a crime which, in my opinion, was committed out of lust and greed -- in my
view, that places it in the most serious category of crimes of murder.

"Your joint complicity ... demonstrates a lack of remorse or contrition for the taking
of the life of Mrs Matthews who, by all accounts, was a decent, hard-working woman and
a devoted mother."

During the trial, the court was told Matthews and Burgess wanted Mrs Matthews dead
so they could continue their relationship and collect Mrs Matthews' $100,000 life insurance
policy.

The hitman, David Edgar Key, told the court he was to be paid $50,000 for killing Mrs
Matthews and Burgess' husband Darren.

The second murder did not take place.

Key, also sentenced to life in prison, was earlier given a 20-year non-parole period.

The 30-year non-parole periods handed down to Burgess and Matthews, who was granted
leave to appeal against his conviction, was believed to be the longest ever in the state.

Snowtown killers John Bunting and Robert Wagner were not given non-parole periods for
the multiple murders they committed.

AAP sl/lb/tnfi

KEYWORD: MATTHEWS NIGHTLEAD

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