The family of Ballina woman Lindy Lucena has remembered her as a "happy soul" with a "wicked sense of humour" at a vigil mourning her death.
Around 200 people attended the candlelight vigil at on the banks of the Richmond River in northern NSW on Sunday night, which included speeches, music and a flower mandala.
Ms Lucena's family did not attend the vigil in person but gave the organisers a statement to be read at the event.
"She loved The Aunty Jack and Monty Python, she also loved her music ... her favourite colour was purple," it said.
"The family are devastated by her loss and the brutality of her last days.
"Our hearts are broken."
The 64-year-old woman's body was found in a laneway in the Ballina CBD in the early hours of January 4, with what police described as "significant head trauma".
Ms Lucina's partner, Robert Karl Huber, 66, has been charged with her murder and breaching an apprehended domestic violence order.
At the time of the arrest, police said they were treating her death as a case of domestic violence.
Saying no to domestic violence
Vigil organiser and anti-domestic violence campaigner Mandy Nolan said she was sickened by Ms Lucena's death.
"If we don't use these opportunities to have difficult conversations and to say we've had enough and to push for real change," she said.
"We need justice for woman and children and victims of family violence."
Ballina mayor Sharon Cadwallader spoke at the vigil of her own experience as a domestic violence survivor.
"We all have to take responsibility to call it out for what it is and report things that are not right," she said.
"And I think it has to come from our community looking after community [and] we've absolutely seen that can happen during the [2022 Northern NSW] floods."
Justice inside the home
Retired local court magistrate David Heilpern spoke at the vigil about the need for different approaches to policing family violence.
"I had thousands of search warrants and listening devices pass my desk as a magistrate," he said.
"Drugs, property crime, employees, white collar criminals. Not one for domestic violence."
Mr Heilpern said he had also seen throughout his career that perpetrators of violence against strangers often received harsher punishments than perpetrators of domestic violence.
"The walls of houses, the barriers of families, should not be walls where justice stops," he said.
