Young Mother Who Killed Her Rapist, Dragged Body Through Street Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison
An Australian woman who stabbed her rapist to death after he threatened her daughter and demanded more sex has been sentenced to 10-plus years behind bars.
In December of 2015, Roxanne Peters, then 32 years old, stabbed 52-year-old Grant Cassar dozens of times all over his body, including his penis, until his lifeless body was lying on her kitchen floor.
Cassar reportedly tied up and raped Peters days before the incident. He came back into her home looking to do a "meth cook-up" and demanded she have more sex with him. When Peters refused, Cassar threatened her daughter, said prosecutor David Nardone.
Cassar "threatened [Peters'] daughter, if she didn't have sex with him again," Nardone claimed.
The mother grabbed a kitchen knife and when Cassar grabbed her other hand, she repeatedly stabbed him while screaming "you don't rape me."
After friends refused to help her dispose of the body lying dead on her kitchen floor, Peters decided to drop Cassar's copse into a ditch past a local police station. She tied up the dead body to the back of her vehicle and dragged him through the streets for over a mile before dumping him.
Cassar's body — found with 61 injuries — was recovered by authorities the following day. Deep stab wounds were found across his chest, and his penis was also said to have been stabbed.
Peters eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and interfering with a corpse, reports 9 News.
According to The New York Post, the presiding judge, David Boddice, acknowledged that Peters was "enraged" by Cassar's sexual assault and the threats leveled against her daughter, "but that did not excuse her lack of respect for his 'human dignity.'"
"I accept the stabbing occurred in circumstances when you were enraged by what the deceased had done to you and was threatening to do to you again," Justice Boddice said.
Instead of seeking help after she killed the man, the judge said, "you set about the process of callously disposing of the deceased body."
"No doubt your rage continued to affect your attitude to him," added Boddice.
"Boddice said Peters' upbringing around drug users, where she was subjected to sexual abuse, had exacerbated the rage she felt when Cassar came to her home on the day he died," notes the Post.
Peters was sentenced to nine years behind bars for manslaughter and an additional 18 months for interfering with a corpse. She was jailed on Monday.
Due to time already served, though, Peters is eligible for parole in less than two years, notes The Mirror. As early as June of 2020, Peters could be a free woman.
"Never in the world, could I imagine a woman would do such a horrible thing. Whoever wrote the words 'wounds heal with time,' obviously never lost a child," Janice Cassar, the victim's mother, told the court.
