CASEY Veal tucked baby Zayden snug into his cot, switched on the baby monitor, and planted a final kiss on his cheek. He rolled over to cuddle his teddy bear.

The morning after that wintry night, in June 2012, the family were to start moving to a new rented house with a sandpit and a cubby house, perfect for the 10-month-old and big brother Xavier.

But unimaginable horror dawned with the day.

Xavier, who had a room along the hall from Zayden, woke Casey and partner Matt with the ominous words: “Doors open. Doors open.”

The walls of the home that was their castle had been breached. Belongings were gone, cash taken, their car broken into.

Casey called police, then went into Zayden’s room to wake him. But things were not as she had left them.

The monitor was unplugged. Zayden’s teddy wasn’t in his cot. And he lay all covered up, and still - too still.

media_camera No answers to why thief killed Zayden

Peeling back the blanket, the full horror was revealed.

Her baby’s face was broken and bloody. She pumped his chest, tried to force air through swollen lips.

“I said to him, ‘You need to breathe. You can’t leave me.’” But he was gone.

“I never got to say goodbye to him properly,” Casey said.

“It was the most painful and most vulnerable I’ve ever felt in my life.

She said: “The look on (Xavier’s) face still hurts me a lot because it was just utter shock and horror; his little mind couldn’t comprehend what was happening in front of him.

“I just instantly thought of protecting him. I told Matt to take him out because I didn’t want him to see him like that.”

Parents reassure their children monsters don’t exist.

But in that house, that night, one did. It turned their house upside-down, stole to feed its habits - and snuffed out the life of a baby boy.

The monster’s name, when it was found, was Harley Hicks. But, despite a five-week Supreme Court trial, one question remains unanswered.

Why kill the tiniest, most helpless person in the house?

Zayden may have stirred as Hicks ransacked the house, prosecutor Michele Williams, SC, theorised to the jury.

media_camera Loving brothers Zayden and Xavier.

For Casey, it’s hardly an answer. “Why Zayden?” she demands to know. “Why the smallest one in the house? Why the innocent baby?”

For her, every night brings nightmares, her terror as vivid now as it was the day her baby died. Some days, breathing feels impossible. She can’t cry, because there are no tears left.

But now, at least, she can put one chapter of that unending nightmare behind her, now a jury has found the 21-year-old with a mounting criminal record guilty of murder.

Casey sat calmly as the foreman announced the jury was satisfied Hicks broke into the Eaglehawk Rd house in Long Gully, early on June 15, 2012, and - high on alcohol, cannabis and ice - fatally attacked the defenceless infant with a baton made from copper wire and electrical tape.

Hicks was stealing from homes and cars. If only he’d stopped at that.

Casey sat in court almost every day of the trial, metres from Hicks, enduring sickening details of her son’s death.

Hicks - according to his lawyer a liar, thief, and drug-user - denied murdering Zayden and burgling the home.

At first he sought to blame a friend before conceding it was a lie. Then he suggested his twin, Ashley, was the killer. But Ashley had an alibi.

The DNA of Hicks and Zayden were on the murder weapon, and Zayden’s DNA was on a set-top box Hicks said he had stolen elsewhere.

media_camera Zayden’s murderer Harley Hicks.

Hicks had earlier been sentenced to 12 months in youth detention for a spree of burglaries and driving offences. And the morning he became a murderer, once more a warrant was out for his arrest.

But the arrest did not happen in time to save Zayden.

Xavier was close to Zayden, Casey said: “They were like puppies sometimes. They played a lot of cars and trucks.”

Xavier would give his little brother his favourite toy if he was crying, and hand him food from the fridge; Zayden liked Vegemite on toast, and apples.

But Xavier’s now lost his playmate, and Casey can’t explain why.

Xavier calls Zayden his “brother who lives in the sky”, and each birthday and Christmas wishes for his return.

“You can’t describe the sadness in a four-year-old’s eyes. It’s something no one should ever see,” Casey says.

She’s in the new home Zayden never saw, surrounded by photos: of Xavier and Zayden splashing in a bubble bath; Xavier staring adoringly at his brother, protective arms wrapped about him.

Xavier calls Hicks The Monster.

“He’s asked, ‘Is he still in pain. Is he still hurting?’ Most of the time I tell him he’s fine and we release yellow balloons. Always yellow,” Casey said.

“Everything yellow reminds us of Zayden. It was his favourite colour to play with, and because he was so bright, happy.

“He used to laugh; he was never ever cranky.”

Casey pulls out a picture of a little boy with angel wings.

“That’s my brother, Zayden,” Xavier says. “He’s the brightest star in the sky.”

angus.thompson@news.com.au