A man who raped a young woman while wanted by police over a decomposing body found in a rubbish bin has been jailed for 18 years.
Adam John Charles Evans, 36, faced the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday for sentencing after pleading guilty to theft in company, manslaughter, interfering with a corpse and four charges of rape.
The charge relates to a four-day period in which Evans beat 61-year-old Kym Mitchell to death at a Yeronga unit in Brisbane’s south on November 26, 2018.
Evans, along with Robert Louis Gibson, 43, had robbed a 28-year-old woman earlier that day as she walked across a railway viaduct.
Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso said there was “no identifiable motive” as to why Evans attacked Mr Mitchell, who knew him, and used a mobility scooter.
“The neighbors heard sounds of fighting and someone said, ‘I’m dying, help me,'” Ms Kelso said.
Mr Mitchell was found days later in a rubbish bin after Evans and Gibson cleaned bloodstains from the ceiling of the unit and dumped the mobility scooter in a river.
Mr Mitchell was struck several times in the head with severe force, fracturing his skull and eye socket.
His back was probably also kicked or stomped on while he was on the ground.
Adam Evans pleaded guilty to robbery, manslaughter, interfering with a corpse and four charges of rape
Evans told people he had ‘flogged’ Mr Mitchell and then ‘gone too far and was now going away for 25 years’.
At 4 a.m. on November 30, 2018, Evans and Gibson followed a 21-year-old woman as she left a tavern.
Gibson told the woman, “We just beat up a guy. He’s dead. I’m a murderer.’
The woman was pushed to the ground and Gibson told her ‘if you don’t do it, be killed like the man’ before she was raped by Evans and Gibson.
Gibson was sentenced to 11 years in prison in May 2022 for robbery, rape and accessory to manslaughter.
Defense attorney Justin Thomas said Evans suffered trauma as a young man that resulted in substance abuse and mental health problems throughout his adult life.
“He had not routinely behaved violently before this very serious crime took place… drunkenness played a significant role,” he said.
Judge Glenn Martin told Evans he had treated Mr Mitchell’s body in an inhuman and disgraceful manner.
“Without any reason given to the court, you murdered a man who is 30 years older than you and has a disability,” he said.
Defense attorney Justin Thomas said Evans suffered trauma as a young man that resulted in substance abuse and mental health problems throughout his adult life
Judge Martin said he could not find that Evans showed remorse for raping the young woman.
‘The rapes were brutal and terrifying. The (victim) would have feared for her life,” he said.
Evans was sentenced to a total prison term of 18 years, including 10 years for the manslaughter and eight years for the rapes, with all five charges classified as serious violent crimes.
Evans will have to serve 80 percent of the sentence before he is eligible for parole.
The five years and ten months he had already spent in custody were declared served.
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