The partner of a drug dealer who brutally gunned down 27-year-old Wagga Wagga chef Allecha Boyd will spend at least 15 months behind bars for trying to help him get away with murder.
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Tracy Lee King, 36, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to the killing. Ms Boyd was shot multiple times by Samuel John Shephard on a road outside Coolamon in the southern NSW Riverina in August 2017.
King was on Friday sentenced to two years and three months' jail with a non-parole period of one year and three months by Supreme Court Justice Robertson Wright.
A statement of agreed facts tendered to the court outlined the moments leading up to Ms Boyd's "brutal" murder including King's role in trying to hide what her partner had done.
The court heard Ms Boyd was driven to Shephard's home to buy drugs the day she died.
He and Anthony Hagan, known as "Emu", then drove her to the outskirts of town where they met up with Shephard's lover Katie Barnett on a dirt road.
As Hagan drove a car containing three children along the road, Barnett confronted Ms Boyd over an alleged break-in at her home.
Shephard, who had a pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants, then pulled out the gun and shot Ms Boyd several times.
After the murder, Shephard and Hagan buried Ms Boyd's body in the Lester State Forest. It has never been found.
King had become aware Shephard killed Ms Boyd by October 24, recording a voice mail asking him about the woman's location and accusing him and Barnett of murder.
King also sent Shephard additional text and voice messages outlining her knowledge of the murder but when police came to her home that afternoon, she told them she knew nothing.
Shephard was arrested in November 2017.
King again lied to police in April 2018, telling them she knew nothing in an attempt to protect him.
More than a year after Ms Boyd's murder, King also drove another man to Lester State Forest to check the body had not become exposed.
After her arrest King admitted lying to police because she was scared and confused and said Shephard had threatened to harm her if she told.
The court heard King suffered an upbringing of neglect and physical, psychological and sexual abuse, and suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Both her letter to the court and in her oral evidence she has said how sorry she is," Justice Wright said, adding she has a low risk of re-offending.
"I have no doubt that she regrets what she did."
While he classified King's crimes at the lower end of objective seriousness, Justice Wright emphasised they had played a part in the attempt to conceal Ms Boyd's murder.
"Her young life was taken from her in appalling and cruel circumstances," he said.
Ms Boyd's family, watching the sentencing by audio-visual link from Melbourne, wiped away tears.
King will be eligible for release on February 24, 2020.
Australian Associated Press
