Ashley Bropho killer: Evan James Martin jailed for life after murdering child snatcher in Hakea Prison
- Man convicted of murdering child snatcher
- Evan Martin sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Ashley Bropho
- WARNING: This story contains graphic details
- READ MORE: Well-known inmate found dead
An inmate who murdered a high-profile child sex offender in prison and ordered him to close his eyes, imagine his victims’ faces and say goodbye as he brutally attacked him has been jailed for life.
Evan James Martin, 43, launched two vicious attacks on Ashley Bropho at Hakea Prison in Perth within a day of each other in March 2023. The second attack ended the child kidnapper’s life.
Bropho, a stepbrother of Terence Kelly who kidnapped four-year-old Cleo Smith in 2021, was awaiting sentencing for kidnapping a nine-year-old from a park near his home near Perth’s western coastal suburb of Doubleview in 2022.
In the first attack in March 2023, Martin smashed Bropho’s head against a shelf in a cell and lay on top of him to pin him down so another inmate could punch and stomp on the man’s head.
An inmate who brutally murdered a child snatcher at Perth’s Hakea Prison (pictured) has been given an additional life sentence
The next day martin ambushed Bropho and used the guillotine chokehold to render Bropho unconscious in a cell.
Martin then used his full weight to stand on Bropho’s throat, crushing his larynx
“Right now you are the weak, vulnerable person like the victims were… imagine their faces and say goodbye,” Martin told Bropho.
Then he called over the intercom for ‘the boss’ and a set of handcuffs.
Martin proudly admitted the murder to other prisoners.
A court heard he attacked the child snatcher after learning a fellow inmate who had been sexually abused as a child was angry when he learned Bropho was his new cellmate.
When told this, Martin reportedly reassured his friend, “I’ll kill him.”
A month later, Martin told another inmate he was “going to do the public a favor” by eliminating a sex offender.
In 2020, Martin attempted to kill another sex offender with two crude knives at Acacia Prison in 2020, which he did with another of the inmate’s accomplices and kept them in prison.
In sentencing him to a further life sentence, WA Supreme Court Justice Bruno Fiannaca said Martin acted as a “judge and executioner” in the premeditated and cold-blooded murder of Bropho.
“It wasn’t something that happened on a whim,” Judge Fiannaca said. the Western Australia reported.
“You felt it was justified to kill him.”
Evan James Martin said he was prompted to launch his attacks on Ashley Bropho after a friend complained about having him as a cellmate (stock image)
Martin, who suffers from chronic paranoid schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, told the court he “felt very guilty about the murder and expressed that guilt in confessional letters.”
However, Judge Fiannaca said he could find no “remorse or empathy” in Martin.
“You have no shame,” Judge Fiannaca said.
“There’s nothing I can look at that indicates you plan to change.
Martin posed a very significant risk of further violent crimes and was given an additional minimum prison sentence of 21 years.
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