A court has heard a mother of two was stabbed dozens of times by her ex-partner after she went to his home with cash to help him pay his electricity bill.
More than five years after the murder of Crystal Ratcliffe, Ricky James Cowan was sentenced to life behind bars by the Supreme Court in Cairns on Tuesday for the 2016 attack on the "brilliant and kind" woman.
The court heard Ms Ratcliffe and Cowan had been together for 18 years when she called off the relationship, but Cowan had refused to accept the fact, bombarding her with calls, text messages and threats to end his life.
On the morning of October 13, 2016, she called around to his home in the Cairns suburb of Woree at about 8:30am with money to help pay his electricity bill.
Prosecutor Nathan Crane told the court Cowan stabbed her 41 times with a knife that morning.
Later that afternoon, at 2:51pm, Cowan called triple-0, telling an operator he needed an ambulance before stabbing himself several times in the abdomen.
The court heard police arrived at the scene to find Ms Ratcliffe's body beside a bed, under a window.
Shortly afterwards, the couple's children, Ruby and Tyler, aged 13 and 16 at the time, arrived after walking home from school together, to find police and paramedics at the scene.
'Pure selfishness'
Mr Crane read victim impact statements from the couple's children to the court.
The victim's daughter, Ruby Ratcliffe, detailed how she had been "orphaned" after her father took her mother's life and that he had not apologised to her for his actions.
"I am absolutely devastated by the murder of my mother … our lives changed forever, we lost everything that day," her victim impact statement said.
"She was the best mother anyone could have asked for."
The victim's sister, Melissa Ratcliffe, read her victim impact statement to the packed courtroom.
"She was brilliant, kind, she would light up a room," she told the court.
Cowan's barrister, Joseph Jacobs, apologised for his client's actions and told the court they could not be justified or excused.
Justice James Henry described Cowan's actions as "pure selfishness" and said that he had "wreaked havoc" on the lives of the couple's two children.
"Your placing of your existence and your feelings ahead of all others, your determination that you and you alone would possess your estranged wife led you to commit an unthinkable offence upon her," Justice Henry said.
He sentenced Cowan to life behind bars with a non-parole period of 20 years.
Family members and friends of Ms Ratcliffe cheered as the sentence was handed down and Cowan was led out of the dock.
