61yo guilty of wife's murder

Sixty-one-year-old Richard Watson was charged last year with the murder of his wife Anne by burning down their house in Pyramid Hill, north of Bendigo, in 2003.

Watson did not show any emotion when the verdict was given this afternoon but his late wife's family members gasped and cried in court...

Teenager shot stepfather to put end to sexual abuse, court told

A Victorian teenager has been ordered to stand trial for the murder of her stepfather who allegedly took nearly 10,000 pornographic pictures of her in four years.

The Shepparton Magistrates Court was told that on March 13 last year, the stepdaughter shot the 34-year-old in the back of the head to put an end to daily sexual abuse that began when she was 14. The teenager, now 19, has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Defence barrister Peter Chadwick told the court on the night of his death, the woman's stepfather ordered her to go to a shed behind their home where he demanded she perform oral sex on him...

Murder-suicide was act of revenge, court hears

A SYDNEY father murdered his teenage daughter before killing himself as an act of revenge to punish his wife for divorcing him, a court has heard.

In an inquest into the tragic murder/suicide, Deputy State Coroner Malcolm MacPherson yesterday found the 53-year-old man, who cannot be identified, strangled or suffocated his 13-year-old daughter in the family's Pennant Hills home before hanging himself.

The court heard divorce proceedings instigated by the man's wife were due to be finalised in the Family Court just five days after his "vindictive" act of revenge in January last year...