A Sudanese refugee has pleaded guilty to the senseless and savage murder of Vyleen White in front of her six-year-old granddaughter at a Queensland shopping centre.
The teenager, who is now 17 and cannot be named due to his age, appeared in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Tuesday where he entered guilty pleas to murder, unlawful use of a motor vehicle and stealing, and was kept remanded in custody for sentencing on November 12.
He faces a maximum 10 years in prison as the offence was committed before Queensland’s new “adult crime, adult time” laws came into effect, but the sentence can be increased to life if the judge decides the crime was particularly heinous.
The killer was 16 when he stabbed Ms White, 70, to death for her 2009 Hyundai Getz in the underground car park at Town Square Redbank Plains Shopping Centre in Ipswich on February 3 last year.
The brutal murder shocked the local community, and four other minors, all of African appearance, were charged with lesser offences over the stabbing, including a gang member who was charged with bail breaches and armed robbery in December.
Ms White’s family were in court on Tuesday, and her daughter Julie said it was confronting seeing her mother’s killer, and that while she would not celebrate when he was sentenced she would “take solace in the chapter being closed”.
Vyleen’s husband Victor said the teen was “lucky I’m not the judge” and believed in a “life for a life” while criticising the previous Labor government for creating an “untouchable” class of repeat youth offenders, The Courier Mail reported.
“The worst part is sitting in there and listening to what he did … attacking your wife, stabbing her directly in the heart and dying there on the floor in front of her granddaughter, and she’s the one who’s going to suffer for the rest of her life,” he said.
He added that his wife had appeared to have given her killer the keys to her car willingly, only to be savagely murdered anyway.
“He killed her by choice. There’s no other way to put it. He just killed her because he chose to kill her. He was acting like god.”
Julie White said she could not imagine how her mother felt in her last months, noting she was small in stature compared to the teenager, who would have towered over her.
“It would be very intimidating. Because all that went through my mind personally is what on earth did my mum think in that moment,” she said.
“For her to be there … I couldn’t imagine. And I’m holding back tears now, but those final moments, I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
Header image: Left, right, Vyleen White.
