Girlfriend-killer jailed 30 years

By JIMMY KALEBE
JUSTICE Frazer Pitpit says taking the life of another person prematurely is devaluing life to an animal or insect.
He then slapped a hefty maximum jail sentence of 30 years on Lukas Martin, 29, for killing his girlfriend in 2016.
Describing the case as unfortunate with the life of a young woman being taken away prematurely, Justice Pitpit noted that Martin had throughout the hearing maintained innocence.
“But you are found guilty based on the medical and autopsy report,” he told Martin who was from Huon Gulf’s Nasuwapum village in Morobe.
The autopsy report stated that Martin’s girlfriend died from a blunt force on her neck, that there was sexual confrontation and that her uterus was sticking out at her vagina’s opening when her naked body was found.
The doctor also ruled out any suggestion of the girlfriend’s death due to accidental causes.
Justice Pitpit said the maximum penalty for such an offence was life imprisonment but he placed Martin on second degree murder which the Supreme Court deemed a jail term of between 20 and 30 years as appropriate.
Martin on May 24, 2016, in his Nasuwapum village got into an argument with his girlfriend after he was lied to by her family that she was not in the previous night.
While under the influence of alcohol, he took his girlfriend to the Markham River bank in the village.
Martin and his girlfriend then engaged in a heated quarrel and he used blunt force, fatally fracturing her neck.
When alerted later, the girlfriend’s family rushed to the river bank and found Martin trying to flee across the river.
The body of Martin’s girlfriend was found naked floating downstream two days later.
Justice Pitpit ordered the pre-custodial period of five years, seven months and two weeks to be deducted and Martin to serve the balance of 24 years, five months and two weeks with hard labour in Buimo Prison.