At a special sitting of the Supreme Court in Wagga yesterday Acting Justice Graham Barr sentenced the teenager responsible for the vicious murder and attempted murder of Mr Sherry’s wife Terriane to 24 years prison with a non-parole period of 16 years.

The teenager, who had pleaded guilty to the crime before this week’s sentencing hearing, will not be

eligible for parole until May 3, 2025.

The sentences were backdated to May 4 last year when the boy, then 16, was taken into custody.

He will be in his early 30s before he is eligible for release.

In sentencing the boy, Justice Barr read parts of a psychiatrist report which suggested the premeditated nature of the attack, with Mrs Sherry suffering multiple stab wounds.

The now convicted murderer was known to the family.

He has been in custody since the day of the murder and will spend the next four years, until he turns 21, in the high-security Kariong Juvenile Justice Centre before he is transferred to an adult prison.

It was revealed during this week’s hearing that the boy behaved in a deliberate manner in the lead-up to his crime, taking a carving knife from his Bethungra home to the Sherry house.

He broke into the home by cutting through a window screen before stabbing Mr and Mrs Sherry multiple times.

Mr Sherry died at the scene, while Mrs Sherry spent several weeks in hospital recovering from a range of injuries

including a punctured lung.

She was released from hospital and

accompanied by a nurse to attend her

husband’s funeral.