Primal rage: 'pedo' stomped to death

7-22-2008 Australia:

A convicted pedophile represented everyone who had ever abused the young Adelaide man who killed him in a primal rage, a court was told today.

Timothy Hemi Schaefer, 19, went to the home of Jeffrey Edwin Payne, 56, in Adelaide in April 2007, called him a "pedo", punched him and stabbed him in the leg.

Drunk and taunting his victim, Schaefer followed Payne across parklands before strangling and stabbing him and stomping on his head, the South Australian Supreme Court has heard after Schaefer pleaded guilty to murder.

Prosecutor Jane Powell said there was an element of "sanguinary" to the crime, with Schaefer stopping to smoke a cigarette during the brutal and prolonged attack.

Schaefer had never expressed remorse for killing Mr Payne, who was an extremely thin man, weighing just 47 kilograms, with ulcers and emphysema, she said.

"In fact, during his interview with police he referred to Mr Payne as a sack of shit," Ms Powell said.

"He would have had to hear and feel the sounds of the bones fracturing under foot."

Schaefer's lawyer Greg Mead said there was no clear motive for the crime.

But it appeared that, in Schaefer's drunk and enraged state, Payne had come to represent all the people who ever had abused him.

"He snapped ... he said to police, 'I just got heaps angry,' " Mr Mead said.

One of nine children, Schaefer suffered "a living hell" at the hands of a violent, alcoholic father who beat him every day, his lawyer said.

After his mother left, his father would abandon the children for weeks at a time, leaving them at the mercy of two friends who would sexually abuse some of them.

"He was fed rotten meat, his father would have to scrape the slime off," Mr Mead said.

"It was the cruelty and brutality of those early years that led to this almost primal expression of rage."

Judge John Sulan said the crime had "all the characteristics of a frenzied attack" and Schaefer could expect to be jailed for a long time.

He also said Schaefer had been "destroyed" by his appalling early life.

He ordered a neurological report to investigate possible damage from Schaefer being beaten with hammers in an earlier, unrelated attack.

Schaefer, who faces a possible life term, was remanded in custody for sentencing at a date to be set. ..News Source.. by smh.com