Neo-Nazi Aryan Nations lovers Robert Edhouse and Melony Attwood jailed for murder

Updated

A pair of lovers who were members of a white supremacist group have been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 21 years for murdering the woman's partner so they could live in his house and gain access to his life insurance.

Robert Edhouse, 22, and Melony Jane Attwood, 37, were found guilty by a Supreme Court jury of murdering 42-year-old Alan Taylor as he slept at his home in the Perth suburb of Girrawheen in April, 2016.

Mr Taylor was Attwood's partner at the time and the father of her young son.

Prosecutors said she had tired of him, and so planned to kill Mr Taylor with Edhouse, who was also living in the house.

Mr Taylor was bludgeoned with a hammer by Edhouse and another man, who cannot be identified but pleaded guilty to murder and received a reduced sentence in return for testifying at the trial.

A fourth man, 21-year-old Corey Dymock, was sentenced to five years in jail after being found guilty of being an accessory to the murder.

With time already served he will be eligible for parole in about a year.

Edhouse was also sentence to 10 months' jail for contempt of court, to be served concurrently with the murder sentence, for lashing out at Dymock in the dock when the guilty verdict was handed down.

All four were members of a Neo-Nazi group called Aryan Nations and were labelled at trial by the prosecutor as "a white supremacist death squad".

A 'vicious, degrading' murder

The sentencing was briefly delayed today after Attwood fainted as the Justice Lindy Jenkins described the detail of Mr Taylor's head injuries.

Justice Jenkins described the murder as "vicious", saying neither Attwood nor Edhouse had shown any remorse for their acts.

She said the crime was made more serious because they planned the murder and intended to kill Mr Taylor who, in a "degrading" act, was left dying alone in his bedroom while the killers went to the movies to try to create an alibi.

As part of the alibi, a harrowing triple-0 call was made by Attwood to police, in which she described finding Mr Taylor's bloody body in their house.

Justice Jenkins said the pair, along with Dymock, had also destroyed evidence and lied to police about what happened.

She accepted that Attwood did not participate in the actual killing, but said she had most to gain from Mr Taylor's death and had played a greater role in trying to cover up the crime.

Both Attwood and Dymock maintain their innocence.

With time already served they will be eligible for release on parole in 2037.

'My mum's in jail and my dad's dead'

After the sentencing, Alan Taylor's parents, Robert and Rosemary, said they were happy with the sentence, but it would not bring back their son.

Robert Taylor said his son was his best friend and the murder was made more distressing because no one tried to help him or call an ambulance. Instead he was left bleeding and dying on the floor.

Mrs Taylor said the murder had "shattered" her family and what she particularly did not understand was Attwood's involvement.

"For a person we took into our family for nearly nine years and treated as a member of the family, [how could she] could do that to our son and sit in that dock and have no remorse that her little son doesn't have a mother and definitely doesn't have a dad?" she said.

"His favourite saying is 'my mum's in jail, and my dad's dead and I don't know why'."

Mrs Taylor said the boy was now aged five and it was going to be difficult to explain to him one day exactly what had happened.

Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, law-crime-and-justice, race-relations, girrawheen-6064, perth-6000, wa

First posted