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Killer who shot and dismembered friend sentenced

Convicted killer Jack Sadler with former girlfriend Gemma Clark.

Convicted killer Jack Sadler with former girlfriend Gemma Clark. Photo: Instagram/Gemma Clark

WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS DETAILS THAT MAY CAUSE DISTRESS

A Tasmanian man who shot and dismembered his friend and then disposed of his body parts in wheelie bins across the state’s north has been sentenced to 32 years in jail.

He will be eligible for parole after serving 20 years behind bars.

Jack Harrison Vincent Sadler, 29, heard his fate in the Supreme Court in Launceston on Friday – a week after a jury unanimously found him guilty of brutally murdering 24-year-old Jake Anderson-Brettner.

The August 2018 murder in suburban Launceston was one of the most gruesome crimes the regional city has experienced in recent years.

Sadler lured Mr Anderson-Brettner to his house, supposedly to settle tensions over the young man’s rising drug supplier debt.

He then shot his former friend three times – first in the back, then twice in the chest – in a plastic-lined room in his Riverside home.

The self-confessed drug manufacturer and cocaine user then decapitated his victim and cut him into six pieces – something he was allegedly inspired to do by lyrics from a rap song he liked to listen to.

jack sadler sentence

Murder victim Jake Anderson-Brettner with fiancee Katlyn Roney. Photo: Facebook

Sadler and his fiancée Gemma Clark disposed of Mr Anderson-Brettner’s torso in bushland off a highway in the state’s north-east.

They put other body parts in garbage bags and wheelie bins across the state’s north that were due for collection hours later.

In sentencing Sadler, Justice Robert Pearce said the murder was a calculated, intentional, planned, cold-blooded killing.

Sadler denied the murder charge throughout his 12-day trial and argued it was Victorian drug suppliers who had come to his house and killed Mr Anderson-Brettner, telling him to clean up the mess.

The court heard Sadler had been getting illicit drugs off the Victorian suppliers for Mr Anderson-Brettner to sell throughout Launceston.

Mr Anderson-Brettner’s torso was the only body part recovered, despite volunteers and police searching the Launceston tip for almost two weeks.

Sadler’s 32-year sentence was backdated to August 18, 2018, when he was taken into custody.

-ABC

Topics: Tasmania
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