A BALLARAT man whose act of revenge killed his former housemate and her male friend in an Armstrong St Nth home last year appeared in the Victorian Supreme Court in Melbourne yesterday.
Luthanuel Alex Joshua Chambers, 28, had earlier entered pleas of guilty to two counts of arson causing death after the bodies of Kate Amber Reeve, 22, and Andrew Montrose Maple, 24, were found in a burnt-out bedroom of the rental property on Thursday, October 17, last year.
Chambers addressed the court during yesterday's hearing, saying he was "deeply sorry" for the incident and that he wouldn't wish what happened on anyone.
Ms Reeve was raised in Ballarat and completed VCE at Ballarat Secondary College. Mr Maple, an accomplished hockey player, moved to Ballarat from Adelaide in 2002 to study primary school teaching at Australian Catholic University's Aquinas Campus.
They died of smoke inhalation.
The court heard that the defendant, who changed his name from Dean Stacy Cummins when he was 15, entered the property in the early hours of the morning, placed photographs on the lounge room floor of Ms Reeve's deceased younger brother which he had stolen from the home, poured kerosene on them and set them alight.
He then left the property and went home via the Black Hill lookout to watch the fire.
In his record of interview Chambers said he believed no-one was at home and did not intend for any person to die.
Defence counsel Aaron Shwartz said the fire was "an act of spiteful revenge that has gone horrible wrong" which followed about a week of "strange and extraordinary" relations between a group of people.
He said the fire was the act of a man with a "borderline personality disorder" who was verging on psychosis and in the depths of depression, partly arising from ongoing animosity with Ms Reeve.
The Crown said the animosity revolved around Chambers' non-payment of rent but included an incident where Chambers broke into the house and trashed it and Ms Reeve responded by burning the defendant's bed and other belongings in a backyard bonfire.
Just hours before the fire, the defendant and Ms Reeve argued at Extremity bar in Camp St about the photographs Chambers had stolen from the Armstrong St Nth home about two days earlier.
Chambers said he took the photographs as a bargaining tool to get his remaining belongings back and later told a friend he burnt Ms Reeve's house "because she burnt his stuff".
A document before the court showed that a third person, Ryan Cooper, was sleeping in the second bedroom of the home when the fire was lit.
He jumped out the window and ran away after being awoken by the smell of smoke or a noise at the back door. Mr Cooper did not alert authorities to the fire.
About 1 1/2 hours before Mr Cooper arrived at the home he was told by Ms Reeve at Extremity that she was going home with someone she had met.
Mr Maple had been captured on video surveillance entering the nightclub alone about 10 minutes earlier.
It is believed he had met Ms Reeve and Chambers on previous occasions, but did not regularly associate with them.
Mr Shwartz said his client's actions were not those of a man "hell bent on killing" but "a mammoth miscalculation brought about by a dysfunctional state of depression" while he was intoxicated.
He said Chambers' upbringing was marred by sexual abuse and life as a ward-of-the-state and the destruction of belongings that included mementos from his late grandmother - the only person he believed he had ever been able to rely on - had "clearly and distinctly" clouded his judgement.
He said Chambers had not coped with the loss Ms Reeve was suffering after her brother died in tragic circumstances in August last year, or the news that a man he was fomerly having a relationship with in Melbourne had suicided and had been medicated with anti-psychotic drugs about a fortnight before the fateful night.
Psychiatrist Dr Lester Walton confirmed that Chambers suffered from a personality disorder which rendered him prone to self-mutilation and suicidal tendencies.
Dr Walton said Chambers' disorder "fluctuates hour-by-hour" and that "he's a person who doesn't give careful heed to the circumstances of his actions, from time to time".
The defence called for Chambers' prison term to be of a length that allowed him to create a life afterwards, stressing that the circumstances put his at the lower end of culpability and that his personality disorder and homosexuality would make imprisonment a much greater burden.
Chambers will be sentenced before Justice John Coldrey later this year.
It will be the first time a person has been sentenced on the charge of arson causing death which was introduced in 1997.