For 24 years the men who killed 72-year-old Irma Palasics, and brutally bashed her husband Gregor, probably thought they would never see the inside of a jail cell for their horrific crimes.
But the victims' family and police investigators never gave up on what had been one of Canberra's longest-running cold cases.
On Friday, August 28, the masked home invaders responsible for the 1999 death, which has caused lasting trauma to generations of the Palasics family, finally learnt their fate.
The ACT Supreme Court sentenced Melbourne men Joseph Vekony and Steve Fabriczy, both 71, to a significant period of time behind bars, backdated to the time of their 2023 arrests.
Vekony was handed a 20-year jail sentence with a 12-year non-parole period. He will almost certainly die in jail because of a terminal liver cancer diagnosis with a 12-month life expectancy.
Fabriczy was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years in prison with an 11-year non-parole period.
Speaking outside court on behalf of the victims' family, grandson John Mikita said they still needed time to mentally process the sentences.
"A sentence can't undo what's happened to my grandparents, but we believe it recognises the seriousness of the crimes and devastating impact that they had on our family," he said.
"There is no celebration. There is relief and gratitude, but also a deep sadness for everything our family has gone through and lost along the way. Today belongs to Irma and Gregor.
"We just want to rest now. We want to try as best as possible to put this behind us."
Justice David Mossop said both killers had lived their lives as if they were innocent in the 24 years before their arrests, and had no remorse or acceptance of guilt.
Justice Mossop described the crimes as a "violent home invasion of the residence of elderly citizens who are minding their own business".
The judge found the robbers were motivated by greed after receiving information that the couple were an appropriate target.
Vekony and Fabriczy were found guilty of manslaughter, forcible confinement, armed robbery, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm after an eight-week jury trial earlier this year.
Fabriczy had pleaded guilty to burglary but claimed he acted as lookout and did not cause any harm. The jury rejected this.
While the men were found not guilty of murder, the jury was required to consider the statutory alternative of manslaughter.
Fabriczy was arrested in 2023, after making admissions to an undercover police officer named 'Danny' who purported to be the boss of a criminal syndicate. Vekony was arrested a few months later.
In a breakthrough, Fabriczy's DNA was linked in 2019 to a three-litre milk bottle tested in the Palasicses' fridge after the killing. Following a reinvigorated investigation, Vekony's DNA was linked to a water jug also found in the fridge.
In 1999 Vekony and Fabriczy drove from Melbourne to Canberra, broke in and bound the couple before stealing $30,000 that was hidden in a secret compartment in the kitchen.
They ransacked the house while Mrs Palasics was tied up, face-down in the hallway. They were required to either walk past or step over the woman as they searched the home and as they exited.
Mrs Palasics was already dead when her husband managed to cut free of his binds and make his way over to her, she was lying face down with tape around her neck and mouth.
In a heartbreaking recording played to the jury in February, Mr Palasics described cutting tape from her face and telling his wife to "get up, get up".
"She don't answer me, she die," he said.
A forensic pathologist determined she had broken her nose and there was a likely asphyxiation component.
This was the third time the couple had been robbed, having been burgled twice before in strikingly similar incidents while they lived in Red Hill.
Vekony was also found guilty of the 1998 burglary and assault of Mrs Palasics.
After the manslaughter, Mr Palasics survived and was hospitalised with injuries but was never the same. In court earlier this week, Mr Mikita described the trauma as staying with him "until the day he died".
The eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Palasics, Elizabeth Mikita, told the court that "the ferocious and inhumane acts perpetrated on my parents will never leave me".
"This will continue to torture me beyond the grave," she said.
On Friday, Justice Mossop found both Vekony and Fabriczy were equally culpable for the brutal crimes and there was no basis to distinguish the two roles. As a result they were sentenced on the basis of joint commission.
The judge said the two men had made an agreement to commit the burglary and contemplated that significant acts of violence would be carried out on the elderly residents.
Earlier this week, ACT Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions deputy director Trent Hickey argued the manslaughter was "just short of murder" and in "the worst category" for the crime.
He said it warranted the maximum penalty, which for the ACT is 20 years.
The judge found the manslaughter was in the high range of objective seriousness, but it was not in the worst category.
Justice Mossop said the crimes needed "to be denounced, punished and ... other people need to be deterred".
Vekony is appealing his sentence and will be eligible for parole in 2035. Fabriczy will be eligible in 2034.
