The man who stalked, raped and murdered Eurydice Dixon in a Melbourne park last year has been sentenced to life in prison. 20-year-old Jaymes Todd must serve a minimum of 35 years in jail before he can apply for parole. In addition to life imprisonment, Todd was sentenced to 11 years’ jail for rape, seven years for attempted rape and two years for sexual assault. Todd will serve those sentences concurrently with the life sentence.
During a plea hearing last month, the court heard Todd was at “significant” risk of reoffending because he had sexual sadism disorder.
Outside the court, Ms Dixon’s father Jeremy Dixon spoke to reporters and admitted he was glad a killer was off the streets.
“I wasn’t ever going to comment on the sentence, whatever it was, I won’t comment on it now,” Mr Dixon said. “What I wish for Jaymes Todd and what I believe Eurydice would wish, is that he gets better, and…realises what he’s done. I extend my sympathies, my sincere sympathy for those who love him. It’s a terrible tragedy all round.”
He added, “Eurydice herself should be remembered, as her friends will remember her, for her wit and her courage and for her kindness, not for her death.”
“Your actions in doing so were of pure and unmitigated evil,” Justice Stephen Kaye said in his sentencing remarks on Monday. “The offending by you is totally and categorically evil…There is no evidence [the act] troubled your conscience at all.”
On the night of her death, Eurydice had been heading home after performing a successful stand-up comedy gig, and was just 900 metres from her front door when she was attacked.
Moments before the attack she had texted her friend to let them know she was almost home safe.
Dixon’s friends and family have spoken out about her “engaging” and “fun” personality, as well as describing her troubling childhood that forced her to grow up far too son. When she was just seven-years-old her mother had died from a heroin overdose and was raised by her political activist and lawyer father, Jeremy Dixon.
“She had a f**king hard time (growing up),” Dixon’s friend, comedian Kieran Butler, told The Australian. “By her own admission, she was a strange sort of unit. And so she got bullied and she had a tough life at home. There’s been tragedy in her past.”
Ms Dixon’s murder was met by an outpouring of grief in Victoria. A vigil held at Princes Park was attended by more than 10,000 people.
