Widower Urges Death Penalty Return as Wife's Killer Serves 16 Years

See more of our coverage in your search results.

A widower whose wife was fatally stabbed in a random attack while their granddaughter watched says Australia should reintroduce the death penalty, but the country is “too woke.” Victor White’s wife, Vyleen, was killed by a 16-year-old boy in the car park of Redbank Town Square shopping centre in Ipswich, in February 2024.

White, 70, was stabbed in the heart before the boy took her car keys and fled in the vehicle.

He was last year sentenced to 16 years in jail after pleading guilty to murder and other offenses. The teen unsuccessfully appealed against the sentence in April.

Her husband, White told 7News that Vyleen had only been at the shops for five minutes before the attack that claimed her life.

The boy, he said, “didn’t think twice about sinking a 17 centimeter blade into her heart”.

“If not the death penalty, he should have served at least 30 or 40 years of his life to deny him any lifestyle in the future,” he said.

“People say, you’ve got to show the guy compassion, but he showed none at all in front of my granddaughter, did he?

“I’ll never ever forgive him for what he’s done.”

White’s death was a catalyst for changes to Queensland laws cracking down on young offenders, with the introduction of “adult crime, adult time” legislation.

White said the death penalty should be reintroduced for “very heinous” crimes, saying “maybe people would have second thoughts about killing other innocent people.”

“But that’ll never happen in this country. There’s too many woke people out there,” he said.

The death penalty was abolished across all Australian states and territories by 1985, and the last execution was carried out on February 2, 1967.

Ronald Ryan was the last person to suffer the sentence when he was hanged in Victoria for killing prison officer Glen Hodson during an escape from Pentridge Prison.

In total, 125 people were executed in the country since Federation in 1901.

Australia officially subscribes to the abolitionist movement, which advocates for capital punishment to be banned worldwide.

A Roy Morgan poll conducted in 2009 found only 23 per cent of Australians favored the death penalty over imprisonment for murder.

Another poll in 2014 showed a small majority of Australians – 52.5 per cent – favored the death penalty for fatal terror attacks.

Debate and public attention over executions was reignited by the botched attempt to put US murderer Christa Pike to death in Tennessee on Sept. 30.

Now 50, she was 18 when she committed the 1995 stabbing murder of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer.

Pike and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer, becoming one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death.

Pike, who spent 30 years on death row, survived two doses of lethal injection. Her lawyers have called for any further attempts to be abandoned.

“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain,” Pike said in a statement released on Friday.

My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”

Then there has been the controversy over US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s decision to live stream the execution of terrorist Nidal Hasan who is to be killed by firing squad.

Hegseth said making the execution public would be a deterrent to others but President Donald Trump later stepped in to scrap the plans to broadcast it.