NSW: Married man murdered pregnant mistress to stay with wife

AAP General News (Australia)
04-22-2009
NSW: Married man murdered pregnant mistress to stay with wife

By Margaret Scheikowski

SYDNEY, April 22 AAP - When Kylie Labouchardiere arrived in Sydney with two packed
suitcases, the pregnant 23-year-old thought she was starting a new life with her married
lover.

The student nurse had already arranged for her furniture to be sent to Dubbo, where
she and Paul James Wilkinson were to set up house together.

But instead of leaving his wife, Wilkinson murdered his girlfriend in April 2004 and
weeks later tried to cover his tracks by burning down the house he shared with his spouse.

Police were about to question him over the missing student but he suggested she was
still alive by blaming her - and an unknown Aboriginal man - for the blaze.

In the ensuing years, he told lie after lie, including blaming a policeman for her
murder and indicating fake spots where her body was buried.

But on Wednesday in the NSW Supreme Court, the 33-year-old former Aboriginal liaison
officer with the NSW police force faced a sentencing hearing after finally admitting her
murder last November.

At one stage, he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter, saying he had been provoked
into strangling his pregnant girlfriend.

He claimed that while they were having sex, she had told him she was going to have
his wife killed.

Wilkinson also pleaded guilty to arson, relating to the fire at his rented house at
Picnic Point, in southern Sydney.

John Kiely, SC, for the crown, said the murder was in the "worst category" thus warranting
a life sentence, a submission refuted by defence barrister, Robert Sutherland SC.

Mr Kiely said by the time Wilkinson collected his girlfriend at Sydney's Sutherland
railway station on the evening of April 28, he had planned to murder her.

"He planned it by meeting her to go to Dubbo to live .. but lured her to an isolated
place and killed her," he said.

"How, when and where the Crown does not know. Her body has never been recovered."

Ms Labouchardiere had come from her grandmother's place at Erina, on the NSW Central
Coast, with the two packed suitcases.

In his victim impact statement, her father, John Edwards, said he spent years being
tortured by the hope she was still alive.

"Emotionally, I am being eaten away hearing the many false statements about where her
body is. I am worn down by the twists and turns of the case," he said.

"I served 25 years in the army defending Australia, yet I could not help my own daughter."

Her mother Carol Edwards said she turned 50 a few months after her daughter disappeared.

"All the time I thought she would surprise us and turn up, but she didn't come," she said.

"Instead of celebrating, we were mourning - we didn't understand and we didn't know exactly why."

Ms Labouchardiere's grandmother, Kylie Windeyer, said she missed her greatly.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think of her.

"I get teary and miss talking to her on the phone. I'll never get over it.

"I believe she's with God and her grandpa now."

Mr Sutherland said the murder flowed from a relationship and did not fall into the
sentencing category of needing to protect the public or deter others, as occurred in cases
such as gangland retributions or random killings.

While Wilkinson had told "numerous lies and made false assertions", he said remorse
was indicated through his guilty plea which avoided a long trial.

Justice Peter Johnson will sentence him on May 22.

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KEYWORD: WILKINSON WRAP

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