Vincent Stanford, the man charged with the murder of NSW schoolteacher Stephanie Scott, has appeared in court this morning.
A video recording of Stanford‘s horrifying confession to police was played to the courtroom at the Supreme Court in Griffith.
In it, he told police officers, “I think I went a little nuts” and “I just felt like I should do it”.
This terrifying justification, which doesn’t really hold up as a justification at all, includes Stanford describing how he punched Scott up to 40 times and stabbed her with a knife to “make sure she was dead”, after seeing her outside Leeton High School in April of 2015.
The court heard from the victim’s loved ones, who spoke about Stanford being a “despicable person” who had plunged the Scott family into a darkness for which “there will be no end”.
Scott‘s mother Merrilyn delivered a victim impact statement with Scott’s father Bob standing beside her; her voice choked with emotion every now and then while other family members, including Scott’s fiance and childhood sweetheart, Aaron Leeson-Woolley, watched on in tears.
“Our lives have been shattered. How can this have happened to our beautiful girl?”
Merrilyn told the court that on the day Ms Scott should have enjoyed her wedding, she was lying dead in the cold of a morgue instead.
“The heartache is real … I thought I must die.”
Reports say that Vincent Stanford will be sentenced for the murder of Stephanie Scott on Thursday this week.
Source: The Australian.
Photo: Supplied.
