A Queensland man has been jailed for life for murdering his neighbour, dismembering his body and burying the remains in a freezer in the victim’s Ipswich backyard.
In April, Bobby Andrew Weaver, 31, pleaded guilty to killing 58-year-old David Thornton, a long-term family friend, on an unknown date between January and March in 2019.
Mr Thornton had been reported missing by his family and an extensive police investigation led to an excavation at his property at Goodna in Ipswich, west of Brisbane.
David Thornton was found buried in his own backyard in 2019. (Supplied: Queensland Police Service)
Officers uncovered two buried chest freezers, with one containing Mr Thornton’s heavily decomposed and dismembered remains.
Weaver was arrested days later in Byron Bay and extradited to Queensland.
On Monday, more than seven years after Mr Thornton’s death, Weaver was handed the mandatory life sentence for murder in Queensland.
During a sentencing hearing, the Supreme Court in Brisbane heard Weaver, who was 24 at the time, shot the victim twice in the head and then severed his legs with a saw to fit the body into the freezer.
David Thornton’s body was found in a freezer buried in his Ipswich backyard. (Supplied: Queensland Police Service))
The court heard Weaver stole Mr Thornton’s phone and messaged his family and friends, telling them he had gone “off grid” on holiday in Western Australia.
Weaver also stole $30,000 from Mr Thornton which he used to buy a motorcycle, the court heard.
Murdered in ‘cold blood’
The prosecution told the hearing that while on remand, Weaver confessed to a fellow inmate and tried to coax him to execute one of Mr Thornton’s daughters and stage it as a suicide.
Justice Paul Smith said Weaver “murdered a friend in cold blood” because of greed.
“It was premeditated, he was shot in the head twice, there was no indication of a struggle, he was seated at the time and the treatment of the body is disgraceful.
“At the heart of this was greed, for the sake of $30,000.“
Justice Smith told the court the killing has had a “profound effect” on Mr Thornton’s family and friends.
In a victim impact statement read aloud by the prosecution, Mr Thornton’s daughter said it had been “seven years of waiting”.
“Seven years of no answers, no closure and no happy ending … seven years of praying for some sort of closure.“
“We didn’t just lose him; we lost a part of ourselves … and we still bear the consequence of other people’s actions each and every day,” she said.
With time already served, Weaver will be eligible to apply for parole in 2039.
