Life for hammer murder

A FINANCIAL planner will spend at least another 16 years behind bars after being sentenced to life for bashing his best client to death with a hammer and hiding his body in a Brisbane storage facility.

Trung The Ma, 35, murdered Huegio Bonham (right) at the 63-year-old’s Gold Coast home in February 2014 after he was unable to convince his client to leave his investments with Ma’s firm, Brisbane Money Management.

A Supreme Court jury last week found him guilty, and he was yesterday sentenced to life behind bars, as well as the maximum of two years for interfering with a corpse.

Ma’s time in custody since his arrest in February 2014 was taken as time served, and he will be eligible for parole after 20 years.

Justice Sue Brown said due to the callous nature of the crime and his actions in the aftermath she was convinced Ma was not suitably ashamed of what he had done.

“From your conduct after killing Mr Bonham and the untruths you told, one can only conclude that the remorse shown was at least in part for the life that you have lost, and not for the life of Mr Bonham,” Justice Brown said.

“By your actions, you took the life of an innocent, unsuspecting man in his 60s, and tore the lives apart of two families – Mr Bonham’s, and your own.”

The court was shown an impact statement from Mr Bonham’s sister Helena, who now suffers from an undisclosed illness due to the stress of the murder. Mr Bonham also leaves behind a wife and three children, while Ma has a wife and two daughters.

His trial was told the former Commonwealth Bank employee stole $706,000 from Mr Bonham over a four-year period as his firm struggled with bad debts. Ma’s motive for murder was to hide that theft, crown prosecutor Michael Lehane told the jury.

Ma admitted killing Mr Bonham, but argued that because of his poor mental health it was manslaughter due to his diminished responsibility.

The trial heard Ma methodically cleaned the crime scene after he killed Mr Bonham with several blows to his head with the hammer he found on a shelf. Later CCTV at Bunnings filmed Ma purchasing a large plastic container, which he loaded Mr Bonham’s body into before hiding it and picking up his wife from work.