Ljube Velevski, the man who slashed the throats of his wife and three children in their Berkeley home, has walked free with no supervision after 25 years in prison. He chose to serve his entire sentence behind bars, without trying for parole, and not engaging with psychologists, educators or the serious offenders review council.
The news of Ljube Velevski's release would have been distressing for the family and friends of Snezana Velevski, who lost her life on June 20, 1994.
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Mrs Velevski, 25, was found face down on the floor. Beneath her was the slaughtered bodies of Zaklina, 6 and twin babies Daniela and Dijana.
Their throats had been slashed and a knife stashed under the bed. Scientific police searched the Castle Court home, dismantling fixtures and removing furniture in a bid to shed light on the killings.
Neighbours told journalists back then the Velevskis were a friendly family, who mainly kept to themselves.
The woman next door said the frantic husband knocked on her door when he could not find his family.
Her husband called police, who broke into the bedroom and discovered the four bodies.
"To us, they were very nice neighbours," they said. "They were a perfect couple."
Life wasn't so perfect inside the home. Velevski's version was that his wife must have killed the children before taking her own life.
But a coroner found Mrs Velevski could not have cut her own throat so cleanly. There were no signs of a struggle, leading investigators to believe she must have known her killer.
And so began the prosecution of Ljube Velevski.
On November 26, 1997 he was sentenced to 25 years in jail with a non-parole period of 19 years on four counts of murder.
Velevski was still protesting his innocence years later, taking his appeal to the High Court. He said he'd argued with his wife, who had retreated to their bedroom with the children.
He'd slept undisturbed in his daughter's bedroom for 17 hours, waking at 6am. Throughout the day he made no attempt to speak to his wife but finally talked to the neighbour.
At the trial, the jury heard conflicting evidence from medical experts a choice between the murder-suicide theory and the murder-murder theory.
The jury opted for murder-murder.
Velevski's appeal heard the murder-suicide theory had not been excluded as a reasonable hypothesis.
But the court ruled there was a strong circumstantial case and Velevski's conduct and explanations were not credible.
Despite a 19-year-stint in jail his minimum term about to expire in 2016, Velevski did not apply for parole. And the Serious Offenders Review Council decided that release on parole was not appropriate.
On May 13 of that year, the State Parole Authority formed an intention to refuse parole to the offender, a Corrective Services spokeswoman said.
The authority determined that the offender needed to address his offending behaviour of violence, participate in external leave programs and there was a need for structured post release plans and accommodation.
His maximum term expired on July 14, 2022.
This story was first published in 2016.
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