He murdered his ex-wife. Her will left everything to him

In a chilling attack, a man stabbed his former wife to death after a bitter divorce – but he stood to inherit everything under her will.

A Sydney court was asked to make orders about how the woman’s estate should be administered after her tragic death.

“The law’s message is blunt: you cannot kill your way into an inheritance,” said succession law expert Mary-Ann de Mestre, principal of Sydney law firm M de Mestre Lawyers.

In its decision last month, the NSW Supreme Court examined the law of forfeiture, under which a person responsible for a deceased’s unlawful killing is barred from inheriting a share of their estate.

The woman in this case had made a will in 2012, before the couple separated in 2015.

She left her estate to her husband. In the event she outlived him, it was to be distributed between their children.

The court heard the former couple was involved in Family Court property settlement proceedings in Australia in about 2018, which were ultimately dismissed.

‘The law’s message is blunt: you cannot kill your way into an inheritance.’

Mary-Ann de Mestre, principal of Sydney law firm M de Mestre Lawyers.

“The family law proceedings were the catalyst for what followed,” Justice Francois Kunc said in his judgment.

The identities of parties to family law proceedings cannot be reported.

In 2018, the offender sold two of the three properties the former couple had owned, including a home on Sydney’s lower north shore. When the ex-wife became aware of this, she lodged a caveat preventing the sale of the third property.

Months later, the offender fatally stabbed the deceased overseas, the judge said.

“Because this is a civil proceeding, the court must be satisfied on the civil standard – the balance of probabilities – that the offender unlawfully killed the deceased,” Kunc said.

“The evidence proves that the offender was convicted of murder by … [an overseas] court.”

The judge said there was evidence before the NSW court of “unequivocal admissions by the offender”.

In one document, the man wrote that he had told police: “It’s the divorce laws that are responsible for me having committed this crime.”

After his conviction overseas, he said his confidence in the legal system had been “gravely damaged” because of “the line of argument used in the court’s judgment”.

But he admitted that “I killed my wife” and said it was “something that I am not trivialising at all”.

The judge relied chiefly on those admissions in finding, on the balance of probabilities, that the man had murdered his ex-wife.

The executor of the woman’s estate applied to the court for a declaration about how the assets should be administered.

“The effect of the forfeiture rule is that the offender is disentitled from taking any interest in the estate, and is to be treated as notionally non‑existent,” the judge said. It left the children as sole beneficiaries.

The judge said that half of the proceeds from the sale of the former couple’s jointly-owned properties were held on trust for the estate.

‘Exceptionally rare’ decisions

“Few areas of succession law are more confronting: the court cannot undo the killing, but it can ensure the killer does not turn it into a payday,” said de Mestre, a lecturer at Macquarie University.

She said published forfeiture decisions were “exceptionally rare”. A criminal conviction was not essential for the rule to apply, de Mestre said.

“A civil court can determine for itself whether the person unlawfully killed the deceased, applying the [lower] civil standard of proof,” she said. “Even a criminal acquittal does not necessarily resolve the civil question because the standards of proof are different.”

The forfeiture rule is not limited to murder and extends to other unlawful killings, such as manslaughter.

However, under NSW law, the court may modify the effect of the forfeiture rule in cases that do not involve murder. In a 2021 case, the Supreme Court modified the rule to allow a husband who unintentionally caused his wife’s death by dangerous driving to inherit her estate.

Conversely, in a 2018 decision, the court applied the rule to a mentally ill son who killed his parents but was found not guilty of murder by reason of mental illness. He was “prevented from receiving approximately $1 million, although $100,000 was preserved in trust for his maintenance”, de Mestre said.

While the offender’s motive is generally irrelevant, she said, “the nature of the offence and the offender’s moral culpability may be relevant if the court is asked to modify the rule”.

The rule applies automatically, and a court order is not strictly necessary. But de Mestre said that in practice “an executor, trustee, insurer or other stakeholder will usually seek Supreme Court declarations before redirecting an inheritance or dealing with jointly-owned property”.

“The order determines precisely where the property should go and protects the executor from personal liability for distributing it incorrectly,” she said.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491, Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

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