Vampire-obsessed couple jailed for life for 'sexually perverse' murder

Two young women who bludgeoned and strangled a British-born teenage girl before kissing over their victim's dying body and filming the scene on a mobile phone were jailed for life in Australia today.

Valerie Parashumti, 19 - described in court as a sexually-motivated sadist who drank blood as part of a vampire subculture - and her then-lover, Jessica Stasinowsky, 21, were both handed minimum sentences of 24 years at the West Australian supreme court in Perth for what the judge called a "sexually perverse" and "evil" killing.

The case has shocked the city though its extreme brutality and the age - and apparent lack of remorse - of the killers.

The duo pleaded guilty to the murder of Stacey Mitchell, 16, at a shared house in the Perth suburb of Lathlain in December 2006.

The judge, Justice Peter Blaxell, said the crime was particularly horrifying because the killers had appeared to find their apparently motiveless crime simultaneously amusing and arousing and had not expressed genuine regret.

"You have each had more than a year in custody to reflect upon the evilness of your crime, yet you still lack remorse and obviously place no value on the sanctity of human life," the Australian Associated Press (AAP) news agency quoted him as saying.

"Even more appalling are your admissions to the effect that at the time of the murder you were each sexually excited by the violence of the event," he said.

The court heard that the only apparent reason Parashumti and Stasinowsky killed the 16-year-old was because she was annoying them.

Mitchell, whose family moved to Australia from Dorset when she was 10, had been staying in their shared house after running away from her parental home and soon attracted the ire of Stasinowsky, who believed she was flirting with Parashumti.

According to the judge, Parashumti decided to prove she had no affection for the girl and the pair hatched a plan to kill her.

All three had been drinking whisky when Parashumti crept up behind Mitchell and started hitting her on the head with a concrete paving slab, the court was told. As the teenager tried to escape, she was bludgeoned further and Stasinowsky strangled her with a dog chain belt.

Mitchell took at least 45 minutes to die, the court was told. The killers then kissed over Mitchell's dead body before filming the scene on a mobile phone, laughing and mocking the girl's accent.

The pair dumped the body in a wheelie bin in a back garden shed, where police found it several days later after being alerted by Mitchell's parents.

The court was told that a psychologist who assessed Parashumti found she had a severe personality disorder, was obsessed with vampires and was sexually aroused by torture and violence.

The judge ordered that the killers should not be allowed to contact each other in prison. This brought the only response from the pair, the West Australian newspaper reported, with Stasinowsky looking distressed.

The police officer who led the investigation, Steve Post, said the crime was shocking.

"They killed her then celebrated with a kiss," the West Australian quoted him as saying. "This is not a horror movie, this is life in Perth. The pair deserve to be in jail and now have 24 years to contemplate what they did."

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