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A sexual deviant who stalked, raped and murdered a talented young Australian comedian as she walked home at night has been jailed for at least 35 years for a crime described by a judge as “totally and categorically evil.” Eurydice Dixon, 22, was strangled after performing comedy in central Melbourne in June 2018. The Victorian Supreme Court was told her attacker, 20-year old Jaymes Todd, had fantasies of violent sexual encounters and killings in the year before the murder of Ms Dixon. He had watched violent pornography before and after the assault, was addicted to a fantasy of “coercive rape” and had scoured the internet for “snuff films”. Justice Stephen Kaye said Todd's actions were “perverted and depraved” and “craven and sadistic” as he delivered his sentencing remarks that took almost two hours. The killer turned himself in to police after a friend saw him on security footage issued by detectives, but gave three different versions of what happened during interviews. “You spun a farrago of lies to evade responsibility for what you have done," said Justice Kaye. “There was no evidence that your vicious act … troubled your conscience. The sheer terror that Eurydice must have experienced … is unimaginable." The body of Eurydice Dixon was found on a Melbourne football field Credit: Facebook “In a most callous and cowardly manner, you set upon her, sexually assaulting and humiliating her, before cruelly strangling her to death,” the judge added. Todd lived with his parents in a home “of rotting refuse, vermin and complete squalor” that would have affected his emotional state, the court was told. He had spent the afternoon before the killing drinking and smoking drugs. His victim’s father, Jeremy Dixon, said her death was “a terrible tragedy all round.” “What I wish for Jaymes Todd and what I believe Eurydice would wish, is that he gets better, and … realises what he's done,” he said outside the court. “Eurydice herself should be remembered, as her friends will remember her, for her wit and her courage and for her kindness, not for her death.” The murder Eurydice Dixon prompted a wider debate in Australia about safety for women. Official statistics have shown that one in five women have experienced sexual violence or threats since the age of 15.
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