HIS daughter’s monstrous killer had just been jailed for life, yet Trevor Fraser was composed.
With eloquence and a silent pause in answering each confronting question, Mr Fraser just wants to focus on caring for his three grandchildren – Jemima, Rex and April.
“I say to people that you have to be careful not to keep picking the scab because then it never heals,” he told The Guardian after the sentencing of Adrian Basham for the murder of his daughter, 1998 Swan Hill College captain Samantha Fraser, in Victoria’s Supreme Court this week.
Mr Fraser said he spared himself trauma by choosing not to listen to the sentencing remarks by Justice Lesley Taylor as she laid out the brutal slaying, which was staged as a suicide by a remorseless ex-husband.
“You have to shut things out of your mind … if you want to move on, you have to shut it out of your mind,” he said.
The recount of what happened on July 23, 2018, would make anyone rage, but not Mr Fraser.
He intends to spend the rest of his years with wife Janine ensuring their grandchildren fulfil their dreams.
Jemima wants to follow her mother in becoming a psychologist, Rex wants to be a lawyer and April’s love for animals naturally has her aiming to become a veterinarian.
Three occupations caring for people and animals in their most vulnerable state – something Samantha was naturally gifted at, from the corridors of Swan Hill College to her career on the tight-knit Phillip Island.
Ms Fraser died alone and terrified.
But on Monday, more than 50 of her loved ones filled the court, gasping and clapping as Basham, 46, was sentenced to life in jail for what a judge labelled a murder of the worst kind.
“I find you intended and planned for Ms Fraser to die,” Justice Taylor said.
“You subjected her to a beating in which she sustained multiple injuries.
“You then tied a noose around her neck before hanging her from the garage door.
“By any measure, your offending was extremely grave.
“Her last conscious moments would’ve passed in terror.”
Mr Fraser decided he didn’t need to hear the graphic details in the court. He decided to read the transcript instead.
“I’ve come a long way in 55 months since Sam died,” he said.
“On a weekly basis I come and go from the house, Sam’s house, keeping an eye on it, keeping it clean, putting the bins out.
“So I thought, ‘Nope, I don’t want to sit down and hear the whole lot come out again,’ because basically I knew it all and followed it all the way through.”
As Mr Fraser was led by a friend into the packed courtroom, justice was finally ready to be delivered for Samantha.
“I was relieved, in a way,” he said.
“Although, I said to friends, as long as he get a minimum of 20 years without parole I would be satisfied, because the children would be all adults.
“I had a dream on the Sunday night that he got 29 years.”
Basham was jailed for life with a non-parole period of 30 years.
“Under Australian law, justice has been served, yes,” he said.
“When I gave my victim impact statement, I did say that he deprived Samantha up to 50 years of her life, and deprived up to 50 years of his children without their mother … weddings and grandchildren and things like that.
“It doesn’t bring back Samantha and as (Janine’s best friend) Lija Matthews said, we have all got a life sentence, but Adrian deserved a life sentence.
“Sam did say to me, ‘Dad, he will get me one day. He will come himself or send someone.’
“Sam knew him best and there were a lot of things that went on in the marriage that she didn’t necessarily confide in me, so I was not fully aware how bad the situation was.
“When she pulled up in the garage that day and Adrian came in behind her, she knew that she would be fighting for her life.
“That’s the thing I find the saddest of all.”
Living in abject fear, a terrified Samantha had changed the locks on her windows and doors, installed security equipment and recoded the electronic garage door in what police would later describe as her fortified home.
But nothing was enough to bar a remorseless killer.
Basham was laying in wait for hours outside his children’s home with murderous intent.
He killed Samantha, staging her death as suicide.
At the time of the killing, Samantha was days away from giving evidence against Basham on an allegation of marital rape, after finding the courage to stand up against his abusive conduct.
In a powerful condemnation of domestic abuse, Justice Taylor said such violence was often invisible in public life and disproportionately committed by men who held reputations as hardworking, reliable fathers and community-minded citizens.
“Your behaviour towards Ms Fraser within your marriage and your premeditated murder of her to prevent her giving evidence of rape against you is conduct that is selfish in the extreme and displays an extraordinary degree of entitlement,” Judge Taylor said.
“It was the ultimate act of family violence.
“You determined her life was expendable … [and] had the arrogance to think you wouldn’t be caught.”
Justice Taylor said on the morning of the murder, Basham went to great lengths to disguise his movements, then approached Samantha’s home moments after she took their children to school.
After meeting a friend at a cafe, she arrived home at 11.22am.
Basham ambushed her in her garage, assaulted her, then put a rope around her neck. His DNA was later found under Samantha’s fingernails and on the rope.
Justice Taylor said Samantha failed to answer a call from a friend at 11.36am, or attend a noon counselling session.
When she did not collect her children from school, police were notified.
They found her body about 5.05pm after forcing entry to her home, where they found a three-step ladder tipped on its side near two children’s scooters and bikes.
Samantha’s handbag remained on the front seat of her car beside her mobile phones.
An autopsy found she had more than 40 separate injuries.
After committing the murder, it is believed Basham washed the blood off Samantha’s hair and face, removed her white top and fled the scene.
CCTV captured him running from the home at 12.04pm, with hood up and hands in his pockets.
He also appeared to have something stuffed up the front of his jacket, Justice Taylor said.
The killer was arrested and charged with murder on August 2, 2018.
In April 2022, following a five-week trial, he was found guilty.
The drawn-out legal proceedings took a toll on Samantha’s family and friends.
“We sort of accepted that it was going to be difficult, but just the frustration brought about by COVID and the impact that had, but then Adrian had eight different legal teams,” Mr Fraser said.
“At every opportunity that he got, he made life difficult for the court and it just kept getting adjourned.
“I don’t think there was any court hearing that somehow or another, he didn’t have it deferred to a later date.”
According to Mr Fraser, Basham doesn’t exist.
“I don’t think I would say anything,” he said when asked what he would say to Basham.
“When the plea hearing was on, he did walk in … we were sitting there in the waiting room waiting to go into the court and they let him in straight in front of us. Jemima and I just stood up, turned our backs and walked away.
“I want to never see him again and will never speak to him ever again.
“I really don’t want to.”
Mr Fraser previously told the Supreme Court that his fondest memories of his daughter, who lifted others up with her work as a psychologist, were clouded by her violent death.
“It is also impossible for any of us to fully understand the initial confusion in the minds of these three young children, then aged nine, seven and five years old, being left forlornly waiting after school at the flagpole for a mother who never arrived to collect them,” he said.
“Nor to understand their trauma, their grief and even their anger upon realising that it was their dad, who should have loved them, but who ultimately has destroyed their lives.”
