After 11 years and two trials, the justice system has delivered an answer to the question of who killed Woonona woman Valmai Jane Birch.
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Ms Birch was 34 years old when she died in March 2011 at the hands of her partner, David William Bagster, who on Friday was found guilty in the Wollongong District Court of her manslaughter.
The details of her final moments are not known, but it was 12 days after Ms Birch was last seen that her body was discovered in the bathroom of her Woods Avenue unit on March 21, 2011.
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She was upside-down in a wheelie bin, the top half of her body submerged in water and her right ankle tied to a piece of material around her waist.
Bagster, her boyfriend at the time, was arrested and charged with her manslaughter in October 2019 and faced trial last year, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
But the second time around, after another three-week trial and four days of deliberations, the jury determined the 55-year-old was responsible for Ms Birch's death despite his plea of not guilty.
While Bagster's defence team contended that his relationship with Ms Birch was not one characterised by violence, multiple witnesses called to give evidence in the trial told the court of having seen the deceased woman injured after what she had said were assaults from her partner.
A friend of Ms Birch described having seen her "black and blue" with a mark around her neck, while a police officer took a statement from Ms Birch in which she said Bagster had punched her in the face and wrapped a pair of tracksuit pants around her neck.
Another friend said Ms Birch told her that she woke up to find Bagster had hog-tied her, and the same witness told the court that later Bagster smiled as he informed her of Ms Birch's death.
They were among several accounts of Bagster's violence towards his partner.
Some witnesses had outbursts of emotion in the court as they were cross-examined on their evidence, one screaming "he killed her" while pointing at Bagster in the dock.
The jury also saw the first police interviews with Bagster, conducted the morning after the discovery of Ms Birch's body, in which he denied his arguments with his partner ever turning physical.
Ms Birch was last seen alive on March 9, 2011.
CCTV footage captured her and Bagster at Wollongong railway station that morning and later she was seen alone on The Circle in Woonona.
About 3pm she was found passed out across the road from her unit and a neighbour helped her home.
This was the very last time anyone aside from Bagster saw Ms Birch.
Late on the night of March 12, her upstairs neighbour heard a scream and three days later, a bad smell was emanating from his bathroom drain.
By March 21 the odour had become so bad that the neighbour called police, leading to the horrific discovery of Ms Birch's body.
Her death was a terrible end to a life marred by tragedy.
The youngest of two children, Ms Birch - or Jane as she was known - lost her mother to liver cancer when she was just 15 and her father eight years later.
She struggled with a serious drug addiction that took hold in her teens; she tried to break free and completed a rehabilitation program in Cessnock in 2003, but resumed her drug use upon her return to the Wollongong area.
She was also admitted to hospital for mental health issues in Newcastle in 2008.
Ms Birch worked as a sex worker in the Port Kembla area for 15 years, but otherwise did not have a history of employment.
She had two sons in the late 1990s and mid-2000s, and while both were taken into care, she maintained contact with them.
But despite her struggles, a friend of Ms Birch described her as "the last of the hippies, everyone's friend, she loved everyone".
Bagster will return to court for a sentencing hearing in September.
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Natalie Croxon
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
