The last time Brenda Lin saw her father, she didn't hug him or speak to him.

It was 2009 and the high school student was preparing to fly to New Caledonia for an excursion, and looked around the departures gate to see her classmates kissing their families goodbye.

"Being a prideful teenager I did not say anything to my father, I just stood there awkwardly and thought to myself 'It is just going to be a week, I am going to see them again really soon,' " Ms Lin, now in her 20s, told the sentencing hearing for her uncle Robert Xie last week.

But while she was overseas, Xie murdered her entire family - her father Min "Norman" Lin, her mother Yun Li "Lily" Lin, her aunt Yun Bin "Irene" Lin, and her two little brothers Henry and Terry - in the bedrooms of their North Epping home on July 18, 2009.