This afternoon in the Brisbane Supreme Court, the man who killed her, 22-year-old Allyn John Slater, was sentenced to life in jail. The Bundaberg man, who had known Trinity her entire life, sat with his head bowed in the dock, his face flushed red. Slater made no move to push the glasses which fell forward back on his face and hunched forward, slumping his shoulders as Prosecutor Todd Fuller read the statement of facts of Trinity's murder to Justice Duncan McMeekin. Mr Fuller said Slater, who was 19 when he murdered Trinity, had not been able to give any reason for the killing and had told police he had very few memories of the night, other than moving a green garden chair under her bedroom window and dragging the child through the storm drain where her body was found. Mr Fuller said an autopsy found Trinity had drowned, and had been placed face down in a storm drain, where she was found by a police officer just after 6am on February 22.

Fingerprints on the Trinity's bedroom window led police to Slater. He told them he could give no reason for the murder, that he had not been angry at her, that she was his younger brother's best friend and everyone, including his own family, loved her. Slater said there was no sexual motivation for the crime. He was unable to tell police if she had spoken as he carried her through her bedroom window and away from her home, although he thought he remembered her grabbing on or holding him as he carried her over his shoulder. Slater told police that he "knew what he was doing was wrong, but couldn't control himself".

Mr Fuller described the little girl's murder as "a senseless crime" which had struck at the heart of the Bundaberg community. Trinity's parents were unable to control their grief and sobbed as the death of their little girl was laid out in front of the court. They left the courtroom half way through Mr Fuller's address. Defence barrister Carl Heaton said his client was very remorseful and "in a childlike manner", which may have been indicative of his client's personality. He said Slater "wished he could turn back time" and take back what he had done.

Mr Heaton was unable to offer any explanation as to why his client had killed the primary school student. In handing down the mandatory life sentence, Justice McMeekin described Slater's crime as "inexplicable". Justice McMeekin asked Slater to stand and told the man that taking "an eight-year-old girl for her bedroom as she was sleeping, strangled her and left her to drown in a drain" was "every parent's nightmare" and was a crime which had "horrified" the community and "devastated" a family. Slater grasped his hands together and bowed his head as the Justice read part of a victim impact statement Trinity's parents had submitted to the court. Justice McMeekin said Ms Clarke and Mr Bates had described the loss of their daughter as "unimaginable" and the panic they had felt at finding her missing from her bed was just "the beginning of the worst possible nightmare".

Trinity's parents did not speak to the media as they entered or left the court house; North Coast regional crime coordinator, Detective Superintendent Maurice Carless, spoke for them. He thanked the Bundaberg community, the media and the police officers who worked on the case for the past two years and the director of public prosecutions. Superintendent Carless said the family had requested privacy while they absorbed what had happened. "As you can imagine, this is not solved for them, this is not over for them, this is just a legal conclusion. It is certainly not a conclusion in what is a human tragedy and a senseless event. It's not over for them," he said. Slater changed his plea in a surprise move yesterday at a pre-trial hearing in the Supreme Court, just days before his murder trial was to begin.

Usually reserved for working through legal matters ahead of a trial, it is unusual for a plea to be entered during the procedure. Slater changed his plea half way through yesterday's hearing. Slater was sentenced to life taking into account the 892 days he had spent in custody since his arrest on February 22, 2010. Life imprisonment in Queensland, when Slater committed his crime, carried a 15 year sentence.