The sisters of murdered Cordeaux Heights man Nicholas Katopodis have revealed they are still tormented and heartbroken over their brother’s death almost four years ago, saying life without him is a daily struggle.
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Speaking on Wednesday at a sentencing hearing for Jason Hiroki, who was found guilty in February of bashing Mr Katopodis to death with a lawn bowl in a Mount St Thomas house in July 2011, Lena Katopodis said she and her sister Evangelia were finding it hard to come to terms with their brother’s ‘‘vicious and senseless’’ murder.
‘‘How do I deal with the visions in my mind of his last dying breaths? I simply can’t, it keeps me awake at night,’’ Ms Katopodis said.
‘‘How do you move on from this angered pain?’’
Evangelia Gallagher fondly remembered her brother as a loving, compassionate man who would do anything to help a friend.
She too said she was feeling his loss deeply.
‘‘My days are interspersed with depression, sadness and normality,’’ she said.
‘‘I grieve for and miss my brother Nick.’’
The pair also revealed they had made the difficult decision to lie to their terminally ill mother about their brother’s whereabouts when he initially went missing, saying he was on holidays to protect her from the ‘‘anguish’’ of knowing the truth. (Mr Katopodis was listed as a missing person in August 2011, however police suspected almost immediately that he had been killed. His body wasn’t discovered until early 2013.)
They said their mother died in October 2011 not knowing her son had been murdered.
In court on Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Tony McCarthy described the alcohol and drug-fuelled attack on Mr Katopodis as ‘‘savage and brutal’’, noting Hiroki used enough force to cause three fractures to Mr Katopodis’ skull and significant bleeding.
Mr McCarthy put the crime at the mid-range for such offences, telling the court the evidence pointed to Mr Katopodis being preyed on by the much larger Hiroki, who carried out a sustained beating.
However, defence lawyer Janet Manuell, SC, urged Acting Justice Jane Mathews to show leniency towards her client, saying Hiroki’s actions in killing Mr Katopodis that night, following an afternoon of heavy drinking and cannabis smoking, had not been premeditated given the pair had only met that day.
She said an accident suffered by Hiroki, a former Australian Defence Force soldier, during a rugby game when he was 21 had had a ‘‘profound influence’’ on his life, leading the now 43-year-old into a downward spiral of drug and alcohol use to cope with his chronic pain and depression.
