A man who sexually molested and then strangled 11-year-old Zoe Buttigeig in her bedroom in Victoria’s north-east has been sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 28 years.
Bowe Evan Levi Maddigan, 31, pleaded guilty to committing an indecent act against, and murdering Zoe in her Wangaratta home in October last year.
He attacked the primary school student after a night spent drinking and smoking cannabis at her home with the girl’s mother, Janelle Saunders, as well as her partner and a friend.
Justice Lex Lasry described the murder as “incomprehensible and in its own way, gratuitous”.
“It is almost trite to say that your offending was extremely serious – words in themselves are inadequate in a case like this,” he said.
“You sexually touched and then murdered a girl of 11 years as she slept in her own bed and her own home.
“She was entitled to feel safe where she was, but it was there that you violently ended her life.”
Maddigan initially denied murdering Zoe but the court heard he later told police “it was like a bad movie, I couldn’t stop the button, I couldn’t pause the button, I couldn’t rewind the button”.
At the time of the murder, the Wangaratta man was living with a man he met at Beechworth prison who was friends with the child’s mother.
Maddigan had been released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for breaching parole, just three weeks earlier.
He also had previous convictions for violent offences.
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
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