Standing up for his friend cost Melbourne tradie Cameron Smith his life.
His stabbing murder has cost his killer, Jack Ledlin, the next 22 years of freedom.
The 21-year-old was ordered on Friday to serve at least 16 years behind bars before he is eligible for parole.
Mr Smith, 26, had been enjoying dinner and a walk with his friend Natasha Stroumos at Seaford on November 25, 2020.
They had ended their nearly four-year relationship a few months earlier but remained close.
They were headed to the beach to watch sunset when a confrontation occurred with Ledlin and girlfriend, who called Ms Stroumos a dog and a fat b****.
Mr Smith's kind reply that she wasn't fat, she was sexy, were some of the last things he said to her.
They walked away from the group, but crossed paths again a short distance later, near Seaford train station.
A fight broke out and Mr Smith, a carpenter, was punched to the head by another man.
He threw a punch back and in the ordeal that followed Ledlin, then 19, pulled out a blade and stabbed Mr Smith once.
The blade struck his chest and pierced straight through his heart, severing his coronary artery.
Two men, friends of Ledlin and his girlfriend, kicked Mr Smith's head and all four then fled on foot.
"At no stage did you give any indication of taking responsibility for what you had done," Justice John Champion said while sentencing Ledlin on Friday.
"You waited for police to come and arrest you the following day."
Passers-by tried to save Mr Smith but he died before paramedics could arrive.
His mother described identifying the body of her son, her rock, as the worst moment of her life.
His father contrasted the joy of carrying his newborn son home from hospital with the unimaginable pain of carrying him out of a funeral home in an urn just 26 years later.
Prosecutors refused an offer by Ledlin to plead guilty to manslaughter, instead pressing on with a murder trial.
A jury convicted him of murder in September 2022.
Justice Champion found Ledlin and his friends had instigated the attack on Mr Smith. While Mr Smith was occupied with another of the group, Ledlin had taken steps to arm himself with the murder weapon.
He couldn't be sure the weapon was a knife or scissors, but said it made little difference given how it had been used to kill.
"Cameron Smith was unsuspecting of what was about to occur and had no reason to expect an attack with a sharp weapon was indeed imminent," he said.
Justice Champion noted Ledlin experienced a profoundly deprived and chaotic childhood, and was exposed to drugs, alcohol and domestic violence at a young age.
He spent time in custody and developed a heroin addiction. Ledlin also described experiencing paranoia, hyper-vigilance and hallucinations in the months before Mr Smith's murder.
An expert found he had a substance-induced psychotic disorder, which likely contributed to his offending against Mr Smith.
Ledlin, who has a history of possessing weapons, has already served two years of his sentence.
