By Josh Bavas.
A Brisbane couple have been sentenced to life in prison for murdering mother of four Tia Landers in their home, while forcing her two friends to watch the ordeal and clean up.
Earlier this month, 44-year-old drug trafficker John Edward Harris and his 43-year-old partner Linda Eileen Appleton pleaded guilty — partway through their Supreme Court murder trial in Brisbane.
Harris, who had already been in jail for a separate manslaughter in the 1990s, will not be able to apply for parole for 27 years and Appleton for 23 years.
Ms Landers’ body was found in a shallow grave in Beerburrum State Forest at the Glass House Mountains in June 2014.
She had been hacked with a machete and shot twice in the head with a pistol.
The court heard Ms Landers visited Harris and Appleton in their Brighton home with her two friends Jake McKenzie, 23, and Ryan Morgan, 20, on June 16, 2014, to discuss the sale of drugs.
But during the visit, Appleton accused Ms Landers of stealing jewellery off her while she was in prison.
Prosecutors said Appleton and Harris then subjected Ms Landers to up to six hours of torture, where they inflicted a number of injuries including hacking her ankles with a machete to immobilise her.
The ordeal was witnessed by Mr McKenzie and Mr Morgan — who had been tied up and forced to watch on before being ordered at gunpoint to clean up the blood.