A NSW court hears 81-year-old David Allen Esling, charged with the attempted stabbing murder of his wife of 54 years in April, had formed a suicide pact with her.

Members of the NSW legal fraternity have spoken out against a bill to change the state's double jeopardy laws brought forward following the acquittal of the prime suspect in the Bowraville murders.

An Australian man and his partner are murdered in Canada, backpackers have disappeared from NSW. This is how police will begin to solve the mystery of what happened, writes Wayne Petherick.

MORNING BRIEFING: A woman has been charged with murder after a man was found with multiple stab wounds in a Sydney apartment complex, while easing weather conditions have helped firefighters in Tenterfield gain the upper hand on a bushfire.

Vance Mazur will serve at least 15 years behind bars for fatally stabbing a 35-year-old Broome man outside a bottle shop in 2017 while suffering from violent delusions.

A 36-year-old man is charged with murder following an alleged hit-and-run attack on two men in Perth's south in the early hours of Easter Sunday.

Micheal McRae is accused of bashing his baby son Nathaniel, leaving him with severe brain injuries, but the charge is upgraded after the boy spent a year fighting for life in hospital.

The shared horror of losing family members to homicide has united two women in their quest to form a unique peer support group in Western Australia.

A man accused of deliberately running over and killing a stranger had post-traumatic stress disorder after an assault nine years earlier, a court has heard.

In an six-hour police interview played to the jury, Ms Otto told detectives she and friend Bradley Purkiss had fantasised about living together and had often said things would be easier if her husband were dead.

A judge sentencing a woman and her former lover to jail for the shooting murder of her partner Dwayne "Doc" Davies ?labels the act an "outrageous killing" and a "betrayal" by the victim's wife and close friend.

Police charge a 32-year-old Victorian man with murder after an Afghan man's body was found yesterday afternoon near Ceduna, in South Australia's west.

The man accused of murdering a 29-year-old man on the Nullarbor Plain is remanded in custody after appearing briefly in court in Ceduna, in South Australia's far west.

Friends of a man allegedly murdered on South Australia's Nullarbor Plain on Monday say he had previously worked as an interpreter with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the US Army in Afghanistan, and had "escaped the warzone" in moving to Australia.

A woman has faced court charged with murder following the death of a man at Port Augusta in South Australia's north.

A northern Victorian man has walked free after 21 months in custody after he was found not guilty of murdering a man with a machete on Boxing Day two years ago on grounds of self-defence.

The mother of a two-year-old boy who died in Melbourne's outer-south-east on Monday speaks of her grief as the man charged with his murder is remanded in custody.

A Victorian court is told a psychologist who was found dead in her garage last year saw signs her husband was becoming a "dangerous person" and took precautions to protect herself and her children before he allegedly killed her.

A Victorian court has heard that a man accused of murdering his wife set fire to her back fence and accused her of having an affair with a neighbour in the lead-up to her death.

A Victorian court is told Samantha Fraser, who was allegedly murdered by her husband at Phillip Island last year, was disowned by her extended family when she left their religious cult.

Adrian Basham has been committed to stand trial over the death of his wife and mother of their three children, Samantha Fraser, found dead in her Phillip Island garage.

Police have charged a man with the wilful murder of Sarah Spiers, a victim of the so-called Claremont serial killings in Perth in the 1990s.

A north Queensland man, whose decomposing and battered body was found in a national park near Townsville in 2015, told friends he owed $10,000 before his body was found in a creek bed, a trial hears.

A north Queensland man has been sentenced to life behind bars after he was found guilty of murdering 25-year-old Michael McCabe almost four years ago.

A north Queensland man is sentenced to life behind bars after he was found guilty of murdering 25-year-old Michael McCabe over an alleged drug debt in 2015.

Convicted murderer Michael Cardamone is appealing against the precedent-setting judgement that made him the first person in Victoria to be sentenced to life in prison with no parole after pleading guilty to a single murder.

Murderer Michael Cardamone, who tortured and callously killed Victorian woman Karen Chetcuti-Verbunt in 2016, has his life jail term upheld by appeal judges who say the "dreadful punishment" is fit for "a dreadful crime".

Two men have been ordered to stand trial over the murder of Wangaratta man Nathan Day, with a Victorian court hearing evidence from dozens of witnesses during a week-long committal hearing.

It has been 31 years since Anne-Marie Culleton was raped and murdered while she slept in her Darwin home. Her sister Eileen is now urging South Australia's Parole Board to keep killer Jonathan Bakewell behind bars.

A man who raped and murdered a woman as she slept in her Darwin home will tomorrow be released from prison to live in Adelaide despite breaching his parole four times.

South Australia's Correctional Services Minister criticises prison officers for using a decoy in an attempt to shield a notorious murderer and rapist from media attention.

The mother of Bradyn Dillon, who was brutally murdered by his father Graham Dillon in 2016, receives an apology from ACT Government lawyers for failing to protect the child.

Child killer Graham Dillon's deception of authorities is examined at an inquest into his nine-year-old son's death, with the case worker assigned to help the family saying he believed Dillon was a model client.

The High Court quashes the conviction of a man jailed for life over the murder of 85-year-old Liselotte Watson in 2012.

The trial of two teenagers who rampaged through Queanbeyan and stabbed to death a service station attendant has been abandoned after the second of them pleaded guilty.

David Eastman spent 19 years in jail for the murder of senior Australian Federal Police officer Colin Winchester. He is now asking for almost $1 million for each year he was wrongfully imprisoned.

A former public servant, jailed for almost 20 years for killing one of Australia's top police officers, is awarded more than $7 million after he was found not guilty of the crime.

It's impossible to count the millions spent on Australia's biggest police hunt, two trials, two High Court challenges, a judicial inquiry and 19 years of imprisonment.

Matthew Ross White pleads not guilty to the murder of Donna Steele, as the Supreme Court in Cairns hears her killing occurred when she fought back during a botched extortion bid.

A man accused of murdering a woman in Far North Queensland changes his plea to guilty two days into his Supreme Court trial and will face sentencing this morning.

A year after her murder, Toyah Cordingley's name still hangs in shop windows, on posters strung up on trees, and stickers on car bumpers in nearly every street in Cairns.

Six people have now been charged over the 2012 murder of Jason De Ieso, who was shot dead in his Pooraka workshop in Adelaide's northern suburbs. Police say he was caught in a dispute between the Finks and Hells Angels.

Gold Coast woman Theresa Dalton is sentenced to six years in jail for hiring a hitman to kill her husband during their divorce battle, telling a Brisbane court it is a "catastrophic miscarriage of justice" because she is innocent.

Gold Coast man John William Chardon, accused of killing his wife Novy, allegedly told her friend she had "packed her luggage and left", before propositioning her about whether she would be interested in an affair, a trial has heard.

Millionaire Gold Coast businessman and self-described "philanthropist" John Chardon tells a Brisbane court he sometimes had sex with students he sponsored, but says he never "intentionally" hurt his wife, Novy.

The judge describes it as a murder "on a whim" as Rebels motorcycle club member John Richard Weston is sentenced to 34 years in jail for killing a man over a rare motorbike.

Colin Crane, a life member of the Rebels bikie club, appears in court charged with the murder of Clint Starkey at a Peats Ridge service station last year.