By Brooke Boney.
Vincent Stanford, the man sentenced to life in jail for the murder of Leeton schoolteacher Stephanie Scott, had a history of violent and murderous thoughts towards everyone around him.
The 26-year-old told a forensic psychologist he first thought of killing when he was only seven or eight years old.
“This was something I had to do, I couldn’t stop myself,” he said.
Early life in Netherlands
Stanford was born in Australia and raised here by his parents Anika and Steve until they moved him, his twin brother Marcus and older brother Luke to the Netherlands when he was three years old.
Soon after the family moved, Steve Stanford left them and returned to Australia, and had no further contact with his children.
The three boys were raised by their mother in the Netherlands and evidence tendered to the court suggested a normal childhood.
In handing down his sentence, Justice Robert Hulme told the court: “There was nothing in the evidence provided … that indicates that there was anything adverse or dysfunctional in the circumstances of his upbringing or family circumstances.”
Stanford told a psychologist he had “alright” relationships with everyone in his family, but he was not particularly close to his older brother, Luke.
His twin, Marcus, was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of Ms Scott.
After Vincent was detained by police, psychological testing found he had a pattern of social and interpersonal deficits including the capacity to experience emotion, extreme detachment and indifference to others.
He had elevated scores on the sadistic/aggressive scale but scored in the very low range for psychopathic tendencies.
The court heard “Stanford also offered that he does not have to be angry to feel violent and described it as just cold-blooded violence”.
Violent outbursts towards teacher
Stanford said he first thought of killing when he was a young child.
He was expelled from a school in the Netherlands in 2003 for a violent outburst towards a teacher in which he grabbed her by the throat.
Justice Hulme told the court “he said he had always had thoughts of killing someone from the time he was seven or eight years old”.
Stanford returned to Australia and settled in Leeton only months before the murder and said he had no friends or social contact and that “being in the company of other people was stressful”.
Top Comments
All I want to know about him is that he is locked away from the rest of us never to see the light of day again.