Shotgun killer Darren Kale Walters, who wrote victim's name on shell, jailed
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A man who shot his girlfriend using a cartridge bearing her name and stole drugs from her as she lay dying in a West Perth car park has been sentenced to at least 20 years in jail.
Supreme Court Justice Bruno Fiannaca found there were few mitigating factors in Darren Kale Walters' "callous" murder of the mother of his two children, Leah Anne Appleton, on August 3, 2015.
Walters had denied murdering Ms Appleton, 34, instead claiming in a pre-sentencing report it had been an accident and earlier suggesting to police someone else had killed her.
"I am of the view you thought you could get away with it," Justice Fiannaca said during sentencing today.
The 36-year-old was found guilty of the murder in November after a two-week jury trial.
Lives spiralled out of control
Walters and Ms Appleton were drug addicts whom Justice Fiannaca said lived a turbulent life marked by violence.
Their lives were in a "downward spiral", with the pair buying and selling drugs and living in a car with their two children.
On the morning of the murder, Walters had confronted Ms Appleton in an "angry and jealous state" at 2:00am in the car park below the Mayfair Street unit of a friend in West Perth.
He had thought she was having an affair with another man, Alex Thompson, and had hit Mr Thompson with the shotgun several times in the apartment before coming after Ms Appleton.
Justice Fiannaca said in the car park he pointed the shotgun at her and she was heard to say "if you're going to do it, do it", or "just shoot me".
Walters immediately shot her in the abdomen and she collapsed to the ground, where she died.
'Desperate act of a drug addict'
He then took drugs from her as she lay bleeding to death, telling the court during the trial he did not want her to get 'busted" with drugs when the police arrived, a claim dismissed by the court.
"It was a desperate act of a drug addict and a drug dealer," Justice Fiannaca said.
Walters tried to hide the shotgun in a wheelie bin and suggested an unknown man had attacked her and run off.
"You set about trying to conceal the fact you were responsible, trying to blame someone else for the shooting," Justice Fiannaca said.
He found Walters had loaded the gun with a cartridge inscribed with her first name, "Leah", on it and intended to cause her serious injury at close range.
In October, Walters had offered to plead guilty to manslaughter but the prosecution rejected the deal.
Justice Fiannaca said it was not a cold, calculated murder but the desperate, selfish action of a drug addict.
"By your own act you have denied your children of both parents because you will not be there for a very long time," he said.
The judge said Walters had not expressed responsibility for the murder, diminishing his expressions of remorse.
Walters was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in jail before he is eligible for parole, backdated to when he was first detained on the day of the murder.
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, murder-and-manslaughter, perth-6000, wa
