Dale Lee Vella has been ordered to up to 24 years in prison for killing her husband, which a judge says will never be understood.
During Dale Vella’s punishment on Friday in the New South Wales Supreme Court, Judge Helen Wilson said, “It is clear that Dale Vella killed her husband.” Vella saw that one of his dogs was missing, so he and his girlfriend rode their ATV together to look for the dog.
Then they put firewood inside and ate with his friend David Borg and his daughter Georgia. Later that night, while her husband was sleeping, Vella put a gun to her right eye and shot him at point blank range. He died quickly.
A loud bang and a knock on Mr. Borg’s door woke him up. Dale Vella told him to call an ambulance and said, “I was going to shoot myself, but I shot him instead.” He then called an ambulance and woke up Georgia. Georgia then “tortured herself” over what she could have done to help her father. “She or anyone else couldn’t have helped him in any way,” Judge Wilson said.
Vella never said she didn’t kill her husband at his home in the southern mountains of New South Wales, but she did admit to manslaughter instead. Her lawyer, Greg Hoare, told the Supreme Court judges that she shouldn’t be found guilty of murder because she had a lot of mental problems at the time. During Vella’s sentencing hearing, crown lawyer Kate Ratcliffe read a statement from Borg.
In it, Borg said that he called an ambulance even though he knew his friend wouldn’t make it, and that his friend has been haunting him ever since. She wrote, “Kill Dale.” “I’ll never find a friend like Mark again.” Vella told police that her husband had been mentally abusive to her for years during an interview after she was arrested.
In a phone video of her before the shooting, she said, “I can’t live like this anymore. I let him emotionally abuse (his children) for years. I tried to leave, but he wouldn’t let me.” She said, “He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
“None of the children thought he had hurt them or his mother; they all said he was a loving father,” Judge Wilson said Friday. The jury found her guilty of murder the same day she left the courtroom. “Many people have suffered and will continue to suffer from her crime,”
Judge Wilson said. “The court does not agree that Mr. Vella is a bad person,” Friday, while their mother was being sentenced, the couple’s children sat in the back of the building and cried. In February 2039, Vella will be able to get out of jail.