Almost two years after her mum murdered her dad, Georgia Vella cannot understand why.
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Mark Anthony Vella, 52, would have spoiled his daughter's two children rotten, she says.
"This can never be done because of the actions of my mother," she told the court as Dale Lee Vella sat silently in the dock awaiting sentence for murder on Wednesday.
"I truly don't understand how she could have done this," Georgia Vella said.
She is not the only one struggling to understand, with Vella's barrister and the judge who will sentence her both grappling with an answer on Wednesday.
The 54-year-old never denied killing her husband at their Murrumbateman home on the NSW southern tablelands in August 2021.
Vella's guilty plea to manslaughter was rejected by the Crown.
Her barrister Greg Hoare told the Supreme Court jury to find her not guilty of murder, arguing she had a substantial mental impairment at the time.
Mr Vella's friend David Borg told the jury what Vella said as she asked him to call an ambulance.
"I was going to shoot myself, but I shot him," he recalled.
In a statement read by crown prosecutor Kate Ratcliffe on Wednesday, Mr Borg remembered making that call, knowing his friend would not survive, and how it has haunted him since.
"It saddens me you thought your only two options were suicide or murder Dale," he wrote.
"I will never have another friend like Mark."
The jury rejected Vella's argument her capacity to understand what she was doing was substantially impaired when she shot her sleeping, legally blind husband through the eye with a shotgun, finding her guilty of murder the same day it retired.
It was clear from the jury verdict her impairments did not prevent her understanding her actions, Mr Hoare said, however he told Justice Helen Wilson she would have to weigh up whether it impacts her sentence.
The judge did not appear swayed by a psychologist's report diagnosing Vella with post traumatic stress disorder, when a forensic psychiatrist had not diagnosed the same.
"He just doesn't have the qualifications," Justice Wilson said.
Mr Hoare also argued there could be some consideration given to the fact Mr Vella died instantly.
"That's because it was such a violent way to kill a person," the judge said.
Mr Vella's injuries were "so gross, so severe", and her motivation for inflicting them hard to determine.
"Lots of people in the community have depression but continue to function ... I just struggle to see how it explains what happened."
"Perhaps there is no explanation," Mr Hoare suggested, as the judge noted in any case there was not enough evidence to make a finding.
Ms Ratcliffe reminded the jury who was actually on trial before it retired, as part of Vella's defence involved alleging years of emotional abandonment and abuse.
Mr Hoare told jurors about the recent criminalisation of coercive control, telling them Vella had been "destroyed", and deserved an Oscar award if a video on her phone he called a suicide note was an act.
"I'm sorry guys, I just can't live like this anymore," Vella said in the video, the morning she killed her husband.
His older brother Paul Vella said they were not as close as he wished, as his wife "created friction".
"Mark always supported his wife and defended her if needed, I couldn't say the same about her defending him," he said in a statement read to the court on Wednesday.
Vella is due to be sentenced on July 14 unless a report from Justice Health has still not been completed.
"So often they are simply not done," Justice Wilson observed.
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Australian Associated Press
