Tasmania's regional northern city of Launceston is known for its heritage architecture and pristine reserves — but behind the city's beauty is the shadow of a recent series of gruesome murders that has shocked a former police commander.

Key points: A gruesome crime wave has hit Launceston, with five murders in the usually quiet city since 2016

A gruesome crime wave has hit Launceston, with five murders in the usually quiet city since 2016 Two of the recent cases were described as "serious" examples of murder

Two of the recent cases were described as "serious" examples of murder An ex-police commander said while murders had always occurred, what happened to some of the victims in recent cases had been "horrific"

The horrific torture and death of Bradley Wade Breward, whose murderer was jailed last week, was the latest in the string of killings.

In Launceston alone — a city of just over 80,000 people — there have been five murders in the past three years.

Some victims were decapitated and many recent northern Tasmanian murders remain unsolved, with the killers still walking the streets.

Former Tasmania Police commander and now member of the legislative council Ivan Dean said while crime always came in waves, northern Tasmania had seen "more than its fair share of gruesome murders" in recent years.

"One of the things we're now seeing is crime with more violence attached to it," Mr Dean said.

"What's happening to some of the bodies is so unbelievable, it's just horrific."

Mr Dean is now calling for harsher penalties for those who commit gruesome murders, and he said more police should be stationed in the state's north to help stop violent attacks.

Mark Jones paid for information as to the whereabouts of his victim. ( rxmuscle )

'These people are not entitled to get out of jail'

Mr Dean said life sentences for murder should mean just that — lifetime jail sentences with no release.

Ricky Izard was jailed over his involvement in the death of Bradley Breward. ( Facebook: Ricky Izard )

"They've taken the life of a person, and not only have they taken the life of a person, they've done it in a very gruesome manner," Mr Dean said.

"It should be life imprisonment and life should just about mean life.

"These people are not entitled, in my view, to get out of jail and run around free again.

"They've got rid of a person, disposed of a person, it's just unacceptable."

But prominent Hobart defence lawyer Kim Baumeler said "life in jail" for violent murderers was not the right answer.

"Previously we had life imprisonment for murder, but people were still getting out on parole and you were genuinely seeing that people were only serving about 10 years for a sentence of murder," Ms Baumeler said.

She added the length of time which murderers had to serve before being eligible for parole had increased in recent years.

"The whole point about prison is not only to remove people from society for a period of time, but also to address the difficulties they've had and the reason why they've ended up in jail — to reform them so that when they do get released, they're a better person," she said.

Mr Dean said he would like to see more police officers stationed in the state's north where they could be "pro-active" at fighting crime.

"We react all the time, but I think we need to ensure that we have the right number of police, and that's always been a concern for me in the north," Mr Dean said.

The Tasmanian Government has said it has already started recruiting an additional 125 police officers for the state.

'Serious example of crime of murder'

Mr Breward's death was one of the most prominent recent murders in Launceston.

West Launceston man Mark Rodney Jones, 43, killed the 22-year-old father from Mowbray because he thought Mr Breward had stolen his uninsured $22,000 Nissan Patrol ute, which had been parked on the side of a public road.

While sentencing Jones on Friday, Justice Robert Pearce noted Jones desperately wanted his ute back because he was selling it to help pay for a back operation for his wife, the mother of his three-year-old child.

Jones, who was also convicted of rape in 1998 and sentenced to five years' jail for that crime, tracked Mr Breward down by offering a $5,000 reward for his whereabouts.

A police image of Mr Breward, captured by CCTV on New Year's Eve in 2017, showed him in a local fast food restaurant just hours before his murder.

The following day, after a tip-off by the girlfriend of a friend of Mr Breward, Jones — along with his employee Ricky Izard — entered the unit where Mr Breward was sleeping.

What followed was violence which "extended over a period of 15 to 30 minutes," Justice Pearce told the court — with Mr Breward's "refusal or inability" to divulge was happened to the car only further enraging his torturer.

Bradley Breward, pictured on CCTV, just hours before his death. ( Supplied: Tasmania Police )

As well as punching and kicking his victim, Jones used a torture technique known as waterboarding, which involves putting a cloth over a victim's face and pouring water over it to simulate drowning.

The technique came to widespread public attention after the CIA confirmed it used it on Al-Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003, leading to the US military being accused of human rights violations.

In addition, Jones used a plastic supermarket shopping bag to suffocate his victim, with Justice Pearce finding it was the "second application" of the bag over Mr Breward's head which "caused deprivation of oxygen to Mr Breward's brain and heart and led to cardiac arrest".

Police divers found Mr Breward's body at the bottom of a flooded quarry, a spot popular with swimmers and families, about 70 kilometres west of where he was killed a month earlier — after acting upon information from Izard.

Mr Breward's body was wrapped in a tarpaulin and stuffed into a beanbag weighed down with weights, the court was told.

Lake Eugenana, the flooded limestone quarry where Brad Breward's body was found. ( Supplied: Discover Tasmania )

Jones was sentenced to 22 years' jail for the crime and will be eligible for parole in 2030.

By then Mr Breward's son, who was three at the time of his murder, will be 16.

"The child's life will no doubt be profoundly affected by the loss of his father in ways which cannot yet be fully appreciated," Justice Pearce told the sentencing hearing, adding it was a "serious example of [the] crime of murder".

To this day, police have not located Jones' ute and it is unclear if it will ever be found.

It is also unclear if Mr Breward was the person who stole it.

Tyson Timothy Clark-Robertson was killed over an insult about a girlfriend. ( Supplied: Tasmania Police )

Insult leads to housemate's death

In another case, in 2016 a taunt from his girlfriend's former partner led Launceston man Ian Rosewall to kill Tyson Timothy Clark-Robertson.

The court heard the duo, who were housemates, were putting up makeshift curtains when Rosewall "lost it" and hit Mr Clark-Robertson over the head multiple times with the hammer he had been using.

Ian Rosewall and Renae Donald used the social media accounts of the murder victim to give the impression he was still alive. ( Facebook: Renae Donald )

Rosewall, who was 47 when he was sentenced earlier this year, had been angered by Mr Clark-Robertson branding him a "paedo-dog" — a reference to Rosewall's 21-year-old girlfriend Renae Donald, who was also Mr Clark-Robertson's ex, being younger than he was.

Rosewall buried Mr Clark-Robertson's body in the backyard.

He and Ms Donald then pretended to be Mr Clark-Robertson for nine months by sending messages from his phone and Facebook account, before the body was discovered and the pair were taken in for questioning in mid-2017.

Like Jones, Rosewall was also sentenced to 22 years' jail. He will be eligible for parole in late 2029.

Donald, who pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact of murder, was on Friday sentenced to six years' jail, with a non-parole period of three years.

Jake Daniel Anderson-Brettner was dismembered after his death. ( Supplied: Facebook )

Meanwhile the family of Jake Anderson-Brettner, of Launceston, is still waiting for closure following the 24-year-old's death.

A woman who pleaded guilty to being an accessory after Mr Anderson-Brettner's murder, led police to the limbless torso of the victim in August last year, at a site near the busy Tasman Highway.

Prosecutors have alleged Mr Anderson-Brettner was killed at a home in the Launceston suburb of Riverside before his torso was moved.

Jack Harrison Vincent Sadler, 26, has been charged with Mr Anderson-Brettner's murder and has pleaded not guilty.

He is expected to face a jury in Launceston late this year or early in 2020.

Last year, Police Commander Brett Smith sought to reassure the community the "apparent circumstances" of Mr Anderson-Brettner's death was "not common, quite unusual and certainly not reflective of what goes on in our community".

Fish tank defence shunned by jury

In another case, Noel Joseph Ingham was murdered by a man he had met in a homeless shelter in 2016, with the killing described in court as being a "particularly callous act with total disrespect for the deceased".

Last month the court in Burnie, in Tasmania's north-west, heard Darren Ward Gale, 53, killed 58-year-old Mr Ingham, later selling whitegoods the older man had bought for their home.

Noel Joseph Ingham only moved to Tasmania in 2014. Two years later he was killed. ( Supplied: Tasmania Police )

Gale decapitated his victim and buried the body in bushland, burning Mr Ingham's car with his two pet dogs inside.

During the trial, Gale's defence lawyer told the court Mr Ingham died after collapsing into a fish tank in the pair's shared home, with Gale not in the room at the time.

However, the jury, as in the case of Mr Breward, was told by the prosecution what they were hearing was a "serious example of murder".

It took them less than three hours to agree, unanimously finding Gale guilty. He is yet to be sentenced.

Mr Ingham's head has never been recovered.

Meanwhile, police are still working to determine how Christopher Dean Watkins, who was last seen in Mayfield in 2013, went missing, although detectives suspect he was murdered.

And next month marks 10 years since Shane Geoffrey Barker, 36, was shot dead at his Campbell Town home, and his killer still remains at large.

The 2013 murder of Simon Crisp, at Marrawah in the north-west, also remains unsolved.

Anyone with information about the crimes mentioned above are urged to contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000 or anonymously at www.crimestopperstas.com.au.