Three men found guilty of the “horrific” murder of two people who drowned in a toolbox have been given a 30-year life sentence.
Cory Breton, 28, and Iuliana Triscaru, 31, were killed at Kingston in Logan, south of Brisbane, on January 24, 2016.
The pair had been beaten, stabbed and choked before they were stuffed into a two-metre-long toolbox.
Stou Daniels, Davy Malu Junior Taiao and Trent Michael Thrupp were found guilty of the pair’s murder for a second time following a retrial.
Justice Glenn Martin said they had engaged in “appalling conduct” when he sentenced the trio in the Queensland Supreme Court today.
“It is difficult to imagine the immense terror they felt in the hours leading up to their deaths,” he said.
Justice Martin accepted crown prosecutor Nathan Crane’s submission that the three defendants should serve 30 years instead of the mandatory 20-year minimum.
All three defendants have already spent more than nine years in custody, which was recognised as time served.
Breton’s partner, Miranda Parkinson, said in her victim impact statement that she knew he was dead as soon as she got a call from detectives asking to visit their home.
“I lost any hope I had held onto after 17 painstaking days that Cory was missing,” she said.
“The man that I loved, that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, no longer exists.”
Breton’s sister Tamara Kazim-Breton told the defendants about the person they “threw away so easily like they were nothing”.
“Your actions didn’t just take Cory, you tore us apart”, she said.
“None of us living decent lives should be forced to relive this horror.”
Triscaru’s mother and family members said in a joint victim impact statement that she was cherished as the heart of the family.
“Her senseless killing has left wounds that continue to bleed,” the family members said.
A jury returned its verdict on June 20 after deliberating for more than two days.
The trio faced a retrial in Brisbane after the Court of Appeal set aside murder convictions in July 2024.
Breton and Triscaru had been lured to a Kingston unit before being attacked by a group of men over a drug-dealing dispute.
The men drank whiskey and played video games for hours after torturing the pair and forcing them into the toolbox.
The terrified pair made so much noise as the container was being moved, music from an awaiting ute was turned up in a bid to conceal it.
Thrupp either threw the toolbox, weighed down by concrete, into nearby Scrubby Creek or was present when it happened, Crane told the jury.
Daniels and Taiao were also liable for murder by forcing the victims into the toolbox hours before their deaths, he said.
Police divers found the bodies locked in the toolbox submerged in the lagoon two weeks later.
