Man Who Horrifically Stabbed, Mutilated And Dismembered A Father-Of-Two Has Been Jailed

New South Wales Supreme Court on Thursday, May 13 sentenced 40-year-old Khanh Xuan Pham for the gruesome murder of Goran Stevanovic who was also 40. The convicted man reportedly showed no remorse as the Stevanovic family told the court how they could not perform funerary rites. The victim’s body had been mutilated and dismembered by the murderer in an effort to cover up the crime.

On Jan. 8, 2019, the father-of-two reportedly went to Pham’s home in Sydney, Australia to buy methamphetamines. Pham’s partner Kate Annie Lloyd had been sleeping in the same apartment as the men met. After some time the paranoid man reportedly stabbed the victim in the back using a kitchen knife.

After being stabbed, Stevanovic tried to escape the apartment. He was stabbed three more times. He was stabbed with such force that the knife broke and got lodged in the victim’s spine. News.com.au reported that Lloyd helped her partner drag the victim’s body into the apartment. The victim’s body was then skinned, mutilated and dismembered.

The court heard that Pham removed a tattoo to prevent the body from being identified. For unknown reasons he also cut off the victim’s penis. Over several days the assailant kept on dismembering the body.

The gruesome murder was discovered when Pham’s mother went to his apartment to check in on him. She found the body in the shower and initially believed that it was Pham’s body.

In court, Stevanovic’s father said that they could not perform important Serbian Orthodox rituals on the body as it had been chopped up. Rituals including washing of the body were impossible due to the condition it was in. The family could not even see the man’s body before it was buried. Priests had to say special prayers due to the nature of his death, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Pham denied murder but offered to plead guilty to manslaughter. During the trial, he claimed that he acted after becoming paranoid. He had also said that he acted in self-defense. Justice Helen Wilson found the accused guilty of murder. She told him that his actions denied Stevanovic dignity in death. She sentenced the convicted man to 30 years and seven months in prison of which he has to serve 22 years and 11 months without parole.

Lloyd had been sentenced last year for being an accessory after the fact to murder. She has to serve a five-year and three-month prison. She will be eligible for parole after serving three years and six months of her sentence.