What exactly was eating Jack Sadler about Jake Anderson-Brettner never became entirely clear during his 12-day trial for murder.
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Was it a drug debt, jealousy or overuse of cocaine and steroids that propelled the killer?
"I know he was angry at him, but I just can't remember why," Sadler's partner, Gemma Clark, said in court.
By August 2018, the two men had been involved in selling drugs for several years.
Anderson-Brettner, 24, sold cocaine accessed by Sadler from Victoria, while Sadler manufactured and sold ecstasy to Victoria.
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Sadler, then 26, told Clark, 24, that Anderson-Brettner was a good person to be selling drugs because he was popular and would be out on the town.
Initially, they got along well and spent time together partly because of a mutual female friend that Sadler was involved with.
They even went to the gym together, but Anderson-Brettner's perceived lack of commitment led to Sadler describing him to Clark as a "little bitch".
And both men seemed to be benefiting financially.
Sadler took $50,000 in cash to Neil Buckby Motors in Launceston to buy a black Jeep Cherokee and a couple of months later a black Range Rover Evoque which Clark drove.
Staff at the motor company were struck by the enormous gold chain and the smart tracksuit he wore.
Sadler did not like it that Anderson-Brettner, an apprentice butcher, was prominent on social media boasting about his material acquisitions spending $40,000 on repairing a utility, travelling to Adelaide to buy a black Nissan Navara, buying a $12,000 engagement ring, two trips to Bali with partner Katlyn Roney, a $4000 puppy and shouting parties in a penthouse with free drugs supplied.
RELATED NEWS
- DAY 1 | The Crown presents its case against Jack Sadler
- DAY 2 | Jack Sadler 'lied' about seeing alleged victim
- DAY 3 | Accused murderer asked witness to cut deceased's toes off
- DAY 4 | Police found gun at accused murderer's home '
- DAY 5 | 'I heard someone saying 'please man don't, please man stop'
- DAY 6 | Accused was angry, told girlfriend not to tell police 'about the Jeep'
- DAY 7 | Man died quickly from lethal shots
- DAY 8 | Accused murderer 'happy to spend life in jail so long family is safe'
- DAY 9 | Focus on accused murderer's DNA as jury set to retire
Sadler was living the life of a drug kingpin even to the extent of having a Smith and Wesson 9mm self-loading pistol lying around the house.
A macaw, an exotic South American bird, was loose in the house.
He proudly showed his friend Christopher Fratangelo at his rental at Dion Crescent, Riverside in 2017.
From April 2018 onwards, Sadler was complaining in text messages to his friend Michael Jenkins about Anderson-Brettner.
In June, he had "had enough of being f---ed around by Brettner and Rowan" and that he wanted to cut his toes off.
On August 10, he told Mr Jenkins he was going to "flog that spineless c--- today".
He invited Mr Jenkins to "feel free to flog him" as well to get $4000 that was apparently owed to him by Anderson-Brettner.
Mr Jenkins said Sadler should have flogged him a long time ago.
Whatever it was getting Sadler down, he wasn't much fun for new partner Clark either who said he was using more and more cocaine in the computer room on top of steroids and prescription drugs.
And his morose mood was being stoked by an outrageous rap song Dead Body Disposal, which he was playing almost on repeat.
On Saturday, August 11, both men and their partners coincidentally ended up at the same restaurant Velo at Legana.
Neither spoke to the other and Anderson-Brettner told Ms Roney that they hadn't been getting along well, but it would all be sorted out on Wednesday, August 15.
Sadler texted soon after to Mr Jenkins: "Flog wouldn't speak to me, wouldn't meet in person".
He asked Clark to block Anderson-Brettner on Facebook.
That night Clark went out alone and when she got home Sadler threw her upstairs because of an argument over where she had been.
She said in court she was frightened of him because of his controlling behaviour and threats that her family would be harmed if she ever did him wrong.
The next day Sadler texted Jenkins again: "Need your help, I'm losing the plot".
From Sunday to Wednesday he wasn't himself and became quite isolated, she said.
Preparations began on Tuesday, August 14 with Clark driving to Woolworths in Launceston to buy bleach, disposable gloves and firelighters at Sadler's request.
That evening, Sadler met former Launceston criminal lawyer Adrian Hall at the Star Bar.
He asked Mr Hall where he could dispose of a body if he needed to and when Mr Hall said there was a lot of talk in the underworld about mine shafts at Rossarden, Sadler texted Clark asking her to Google the Fingal Valley town.
He also asked whether a person who had not been seen for 48 hours could be declared a missing person.
Mr Hall said in the case of Susan Neill-Fraser, a murder charge could be laid despite the lack of a body.
On Wednesday at 2.30pm, Clark went to Bunnings Kings Meadows to buy two 20-metre rolls of plastic, tape, goggles, gloves, two pairs of disposable overalls and a saw.
He lined the walls of a small room in his house, which he called the shoe room, with the plastic sheet to stop blood from getting on the floor and walls.
About 6.45pm, Clark went to the Woolworths supermarket at Legana and bought cayenne pepper, baby oil, chilli powder, cling wrap and vinegar.
Sadler told her to park her Range Rover up the road because he had told a person coming that Clark would not be home.
As the paths of the two men led inevitably to a brutal crossroad, Anderson-Brettner was out seeing friends.
He went to see Rio Tinto work colleague Jaidyn Clinton, friend Zac Shepherd and called in on Ms Roney about 6.30pm telling her he was going to a meeting with Sadler and would meet her at his house at Fairway Avenue, Riverside, about 8pm.
He called in at his friend Thomas Larissey's house at 7pm and picked up a bag before picking up two McDonald's quarter pounders at the restaurant's South Launceston store at 7.15pm.
The bag from Mr Larissey was also discussed in Sadler's house.
He told Clark that someone was coming to a meeting at 7.30pm, but would first have to visit his friend "Thomas" who held his money for him.
Sadler told Clark to go into the shoe room with her dog Benji and keep quiet. It was going to be a quick meeting.
She was in the room when she overheard a man's voice talking about being approved for a home loan.
Real estate Anna Langston rang Jake at 7.25pm and spoke for just over two minutes telling him to have a beer to celebrate.
Clark heard some conversation and laughter.
Sadler ate the quarter pounder Anderson-Brettner bought him from McDonald's.
Next, she heard "please man don't, please man stop'' followed by noises that sounded like a cupboard banging and then groaning.
No such doubts on what she had heard were held by Helen Hinds, a neighbour five doors away, who was shocked by four to five shots.
"It was very loud, I'd never heard shots before," she said in court.
The first shot through Anderson-Brettner's back killed him as it tore a hole in his right ventricle.
A second shot through the lower right chest came as he lay on the floor and a third shot through the right side of the chest was potentially fatal on its own.
Sadler burst into the bedroom in a panic telling Clark to get phones from the microwave.
She grabbed a hatchet and smashed them on the fireplace.
After all, they bore critical messages about Sadler's determination to "flog the spineless c---".
As Anderson-Brettner lay dead, Sadler quickly drove the black Nissan Navara about 1.5 kilometres to Balmoral Avenue, Riverside.
It was seen about 8.15pm by a resident who noted it was "very poorly parked".
Clark picked Sadler up in her Range Rover and once home, Sadler put on a disposable suit and set about cutting Anderson-Brettner up into six pieces in a manner suggested by Dead Body Disposal.
He beheaded and dismembered him with an axe and a knife.
"It was a bit of a mess," former state forensic pathologist Christopher Lawrence said.
Sadler told her to hold doubled garbage bags open while he put body parts inside.
"Hold the bags open, close your eyes and don't cry," he said.
Clark said she opened her eyes at one point and saw something she could not describe.
"I can't do this," she said.
"You have to, you have to," he responded.
Clark ran to the bathroom and vomited.
She said the dismembering felt like forever and she was told to get sheets and then a mattress protector to place his torso in.
Clark helped Sadler load it in the back of the Jeep Cherokee.
She drove and they pulled into BP Riverside at 11.15pm.
In a bizarre paradox, Clark went into buy L-plates so that she could drive legally.
When unsuccessful, they went at 11.23pm to Mood Food in Wellington Street for L-plates and also bought more garbage bags.
They drove out along the Tasman Highway towards The Sideling where he told her to pull over and the torso was thrown over a bank.
"The sheets came home," she said.
When they got back to Dion Crescent, the couple loaded garbage bags into the back of the Jeep which she had lined with garbage bags.
A mixture of cayenne pepper, vinegar, baby oil and chilli was mixed up in a blender and put in the garbage bags because the song Dead Body Disposal said it would stop the smell.
They then headed towards Exeter and turned off at Gravely Beach and discarded bags in wheelie bins.
During the early hours, Sadler told Clark to fill a bath with hot water and bleach which the axe and kitchen knife were put in.
Meanwhile, Ms Roney became worried during the evening when Anderson-Brettner did not turn up for dinner.
She texted several times but eventually went to bed.
She awoke at 2am and went to Sadler's house where she noticed the lights were off inside but the floodlights were on in the driveway.
She parked outside number 114 and about 20 minutes later the Jeep arrived.
As Sadler walked towards her she said "Where's Jake?".
Sadler told her he had been out looking for him because Anderson-Brettner hadn't shown up.
"Why didn't you come to my house?" she asked.
He said he had driven past, but she said she didn't believe him.
"I told him he was a liar," she said in court.
Sadler, who was talking fast, said "why because me and Jake don't have any issues".
He was not dressed in the usual Air Force One expensive tracksuit and gold chain, but in daggy tracksuit pants, a top and old runners.
Ms Roney called Mr Jenkins who she knew as a mutual friend of Sadler and Anderson-Brettner, and who was also a distant relation.
She met him at Prospect Marketplace and told him Anderson-Brettner was missing.
They went driving looking for Anderson-Brettner out to Pateena Road and back.
It was a disappointment because she wanted Mr Jenkins to drive to Sadler's house but he wouldn't.
After Ms Roney left, Sadler and Clark continued loading the Jeep with bags.
After Googling and finding out where garbage collection was imminent they drove to Basin Road, West Launceston, throwing bags into wheelie bins every couple of houses.
Clark was dropped at the Range Rover and the Jeep stashed about 200 metres away from home in Andrea Place.
The Jeep keys were placed in a light fixture near the front door
The pistol was put in a cryovac bag and hidden in bushes outside the back door.
A silver silencer and three boxes of 9mm ammunition were put into a piece of taped PVC pipe and hidden in a vacant lot next door.
Anderson-Brettner's house key and three spent cartridge cases were put in a ziplock bag and hidden down a drain near Sadler's driveway.
During the morning, the clean-up continued with curtains being burnt, blood-stained carpet was pulled up and cut into pieces with a Stanley knife into pieces and thrown into wheelie bins at Summerhill.
They got busy cleaning with bleach, burning clothes and carpet in the woodheater.
Clark noticed the grisly sight of blood dripping out of the woodheater onto the brickwork.
At one stage she drove him to the Jeep and a bag, later found to contain $87,480, put inside.
On Thursday, August 16, Ms Roney went to the Launceston police station where she provided Sadler's number to customer service representative Cheryl Deehan.
Ms Deehan rang Sadler who told her Anderson-Brettner had come to his house and left intending to return.
In a grotesque lie, Sadler told her he had been out all night looking for Anderson-Brettner.
Detective Sergeant Peter Roberts and Detective Sergeant Gavin Chugg visited the house on Thursday about 3.50pm.
They noticed an overwhelming smell of cleaning product and that the house was hot with a sooty smell.
Detective Sergeant Chugg noticed that Sadler was sweating and had something white at the corner of his mouth.
He asked if police could go inside but Sadler refused.
Undeterred, Clark and Sadler went to Spotlight in the CBD at 5.14pm to get new curtains to replace the blood-stained ones before going to Bunnings at Invermay to get adhesive tape, a tape measure, glue and a Stanley knife.
Between about 9.30am and 9.45pm, they drove the Range Rover to drop more garbage bags in wheelie bins at Summerhill.
Anderson-Brettner's keys were thrown down a drain in Peel Street.
They went to a car wash in Wellington Street at 9.47pm and to Coles Express at Newstead to get diesel, then to Key Fitness where Sadler worked out before calling into McDonald's at Invermay and returning to Dion Crescent at 10pm.
Police declared the house a crime scene about 9.15pm and Sadler and Clark were voluntarily interviewed about 11.30pm.
She was told by Sadler not to mention the Jeep, "the Jeep didn't exist".
Detective Sergeant Chugg noted Sadler seemed particularly tired and at one stage began to fall asleep.
The couple booked into Launceston's Silos Hotel where they were arrested on Saturday, August 18.
On Sunday, August 19 in her second interview, Clark indicated to police she would help them find Anderson-Brettner's body and give evidence in an upcoming trial.
She took police to The Sideling where Detective-Sergeant Glenn Evans spotted the torso down a bank.
On August 20-21, Clark gave third and fourth interviews where she mentioned Sadler's love of Dead Body Disposal.
Sadler sought an interview with police saying that "Gem knew nothing" but when the interview occurred he didn't say much and said he wanted to get legal advice.
Sadler was charged with murder and Clark with failing to report a killing and being an accessory after the fact to murder.
On Friday, Justice Robert Pearce sentenced Sadler, 29, to 32 years behind bars with a non-parole period of non-parole period of 20 years.
Justice Pearce said it was a planned intentional execution-style killing with an absence of any expression of remorse.
In 2019, Clark received a 30 per cent concession on her five and a half year sentence for her part in the murder for agreeing to give evidence against her former partner.
She is eligible to be released on parole in August.
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Nick Clark
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
