Hours after Annette Steward first met Darren John Chalmers, he bashed her head in with an iron and violently strangled her in her own bed.
He was a friend of the mother-of-two’s partner and a group of them had gone to her Geelong West home on the afternoon of March 16, 1992, to fix her TV antenna.
The four men stayed for about 40 minutes, having a coffee before leaving her in good spirits.
Later that night, Chalmers returned to Steward’s home, saying he had no one else to celebrate his birthday with.
She let him in, they had a few drinks and she allowed him to crash on her couch for the night.
But while Steward was sleeping naked in her bed, Chalmers entered her room and struck her head three times with an iron.
He then tied an extension cord around her neck and strangled her, before leaving the house and dumping the gloves he was wearing in a nearby bin.
A close friend discovered Steward’s body in her bedroom two days after the murder.
Chalmers was interviewed by police at the time but told officers he had been home the night of Steward’s death.
He only confessed to the violent attack in January 2020 during a conversation with undercover police.
The 56-year-old has never explained why he murdered Steward.
Chalmers, who was extradited from Western Australia to face the Victorian charge, is already serving a life sentence with a non-parole period of 20 years for choking another woman to death in 2019.
He kept his head down this morning as he pleaded guilty in the Victorian Supreme Court to Steward’s murder.
Her daughter Jacinta Martin read out a victim impact statement to the court, describing her mother as a free and fun-loving woman.
“She would give the shirt off her back if that was all that she had,” Martin said through tears.
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She listed what Chalmers had taken away from their family – countless birthdays, celebrations and time Steward would have had with her grandchildren.
“Telling you this will change nothing,” Martin said to Chalmers.
“All this is, is an end to a chapter in our lives that’s been unanswered for so long.”
Victoria’s top prosecutor Kerri Judd KC urged Justice Andrew Tinney to impose a life sentence without parole for Chalmers, saying he was a dangerous man that the public needed to be protected from.
“It was an aggressive, incredibly violent and sustained attack,” she told the court.
“It was in her own home when she was showing him kindness.”
Chalmers himself wrote a letter to the court, calling on the justice to give him a sentence that would ensure he would never be released.
But his defence counsel Amy Brennan said a non-parole period was within range and should be considered.
The murder lacked the aggravating features of extended family violence or forced entry into the home and Chalmers had shown remorse for his crimes, Brennan said.
But Tinney noted Chalmers had twice murdered completely blameless, defenceless women who were showing him nothing but kindness.
“He then went on about his life as if nothing had happened,” the justice said.
Chalmers will be sentenced at a later date.
