Last week, a man who claimed his girlfriend had died from an overdose was sentenced to 28 years behind bars for killing her.
Toby Loughnane, 45, of Melbourne, Australia, was found guilty of the 2021 murder of his girlfriend, 37-year-old Maryam Hamka, according to the Guardian. He claimed she’d died of a drug overdose and that he had done nothing worse than failing to call for emergency assistance... Continue reading here ▶
However, a Victorian Supreme Court jury rejected that story, instead accepting the prosecution’s claim that Loughnane purposely assaulted his girlfriend, killing her, before leaving her body in a bathtub for days and then dumping it in a shallow grave in a nearby peninsula, all the while lying to police about her whereabouts.
After Hamka’s death — but long before her body had been found — officers showed up at Loughnane’s home looking for the missing woman. He reportedly claimed it was hurtful that Hamka’s family was not helping out more in the quest to find her, per 9 News.
Hamka’s death came after Loughnane subjected her to what Justice Christopher Beale described as a “torrent of highly abusive text messages” in which he threatened to torture her, drown her, set her on fire and cut off her face, according to News.com.au. “I’m going to literally kill you,” the man reportedly wrote in one message, telling his partner, “you better hope the cops come, for your sake.”
Hamka’s skeleton had fractures to the nasal bones, right eye and right side of the jaw, per News.com.au. “An important circumstance of your offense is that you murdered Ms. Hamka in the context of long-term domestic violence. The fatal violence you inflicted on her… was not an isolated incident,” Beale said. “You told her you would make her scream in agony. The text messages make for appalling reading.”
The justice also noted that Loughnane had a long history of domestic violence offenses against Hamka and other partners, as well as drug-related convictions.
Loughnane will be eligible for parole in 20 years but has already served about four years of detention, 9 News reports. Plus, he might get some time shaved off his sentence for leading authorities to Hamka’s body in 2023, the Guardian reports.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
