Father and son bush fugitives Gino, 58, and Mark, 36, Stocco stripped a farm caretaker naked after murdering him and hid the body under bushes to "cover their tracks" during an extraordinary time on the run, a court has heard.
The notorious pair evaded authorities for eight years and shot at officers during a dramatic 12-day chase across NSW and Victoria.
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How the Stoccos were captured
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This is how Channel Ten reported the capture of Gino and Mark Stocco on October 28th 2015 after eight years on the run.
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How the Stoccos were captured
This is how Channel Ten reported the capture of Gino and Mark Stocco on October 28th 2015 after eight years on the run.
The pursuit ended when they were arrested on Pinevale, a remote property at Elong Elong in Dunedoo, 45 kilometres east of Dubbo, in October 29, 2015.
The badly decomposed body of Rosario Cimone, 68, the caretaker of the property, was found after their arrest.
In a sentencing hearing in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Mr Cimone's children wept as they described their ongoing nightmares and flashbacks about the way their father was killed.
They family, from western Sydney, had reported their father missing three weeks earlier when no one had heard from him.
Mr Cimone had well-known Mafia links and its understood the Pinevale property was being used to cultivate marijuana.
"The state of his body was so extremely ... decomposed we were unable to identify him," daughter Maria Perre told the court on Friday.
"We would never even have the opportunity to see our dad the last time and say goodbye, to tell him that we loved him and to share with him all the things we wanted to share with him but hadn't."
Her sister, Vicenza Nasso, sat beside her weeping and her brother, Philip Cimone, stood behind the women staring at the Stoccos before mouthing "dogs" and saying "this will never be forgotten".
The court heard that the Stoccos' probable motivation for killing Mr Cimone was frustration and anger at being told to leave the property, an extremely remote and rugged plot.
The pair had worked as farm hands for a short period in September 2015 but were asked to leave by Mr Cimone.
The Stoccos were angry because they had nowhere to go at a time when police were closing in on them, the court heard. They also claimed Mr Cimone made some threats towards them and had a gun.
They killed Mr Cimone on October 7, 2015, by shooting him.
Prosecutor Wayne Creasey, SC, said the pair stole the boots off Mr Cimone's feet and a small amount of money on him before taking various items from his home to "give the appearance that he just left the property and was a missing person".
It's possible that others working on the site may not have reported anything to police because of the nature of the property's function, he said.
Mr Creasey said it was hard to explain why the pair turned fugitives and descended into a period of "lawlessness".
They had a relatively small criminal record, had no mental health issues and no alcohol or drug use.
"They appeared to have lost their moral compass from being on the run for what were originally minor offences," Judge David Davies said.
Gino Stocco later told a doctor their behaviour "snowballed out of control".
At the height of their run from police, they returned to Pinevale in an attempt to hide.
A member of the public tipped off police when he found their ute, covered in hessian sacks, in the nearby Goonoo State Forest.
It was only after their arrest on October 29, 2015, that police found the badly decomposed body of Mr Cimone.
The Stoccos built a sinister yet bizarre reputation as they ran amok through rural areas along the country's east coast for eight years.
They carried out moonlight raids to steal goods, went on vandalism sprees, stank "like a pair of polecats" and lived off the grid with no phones, licences, bank accounts or friends.
They pleaded guilty last year to murder, destroying a farmer's shed and belongings by fire in 2014 and two counts of shooting to evade arrest.
The sentencing hearing continues.
