Murderer loses appeal on verdict

A DOUBLE murderer has had the appeal against his guilty verdict dismissed.

In the Hobart Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Helen Wood delivered the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal in the case of Launceston man Marco Daniel Rusterholz.

In 2015, Rusterholz, now 53, was found guilty of killing Angela Maree Hallam and Joshua Eric Newman then burning their bodies in a Ravenswood unit in 2012.

He was sentenced to serve at least 25 years of a 45-year jail term.

His defence lawyer, Fabiano Cangelosi, had attempted to argue that not only were the verdicts unsafe, but that Justice Robert Pearce’s directions to the jury had led to a miscarriage of justice.

Mr Cangelosi said his client had been convicted on the basis of supposed admissions made to people “of little credit”, including convicted criminal Matthew James Coventry.

But, Crown prosecutor John Ransom had argued Mr Cangelosi’s arguments were analogous to “a skyscraper built on a foundation of sand”, saying Justice Pearce’s final directions to the jury regarding Coventry’s possible involvement had come at the express request of Rusterholz’s trial lawyer.

Justices Stephen Estcourt, Michael Brett and Helen Wood were not convinced by Mr Cangelosi’s arguments and all dismissed the appeal.

“I am not persuaded that there was any unfairness in the uttering of the words com- plained of by the first ground of appeal, much less that those words could have led to a miscarriage of justice by misleading the jury and thus denying the appellant [Rusterholz] a chance of acquittal that was fairly open to him,” wrote Justice Estcourt in his findings.

Justice Brett wrote that the case against Rusterholz was strong. “The state case was that it was the appellant who had committed the murders in the sense of striking the fatal blows with the intention of causing the death of the victims,” he wrote. “Ultimately, the jury was entitled to accept that the appellant had admitted his guilt about this, and that those admissions were true. The ground of appeal asserting that the verdicts of guilt are unsafe and unsatisfactory is without merit.”