The man who helped kill Colleen "Debbie" Ayers has apologised in court to her parents for being a "coward".
"I should have run for help or called the police but I didn't," Michael John Duffy told them after he was sentenced on Friday to at least eight years' jail for Ms Ayers' manslaughter.
"Maybe it was because I was a coward or I was scared."
But for her parents, no apology will bring "free spirited" Debbie back.
"(Her killers) are still alive and will be released one day. Debbie will never be released from the horror of her death," stepmother Judith Green said outside court.
Ms Ayers was strangled with a belt at her parents' Picton property in Sydney's southwest in May 2012, during a drug- and sex-fuelled party.
Although Justice Davies could not find Duffy grabbed onto the belt, he concluded the 34-year-old held Ms Ayers down while his former lover, Rachael Evans, continued the attack - and he did nothing when she called for them to stop.
He later buried her.
Duffy also pleaded guilty to stealing offences after the property was raided following Ms Ayers' death.
He is the last of three co-offenders to be sentenced, with Evans convicted of the murder and another man, Scott Derbridge, jailed for being an accessory.
Justice Davies sentenced Duffy to two years for the stealing offence and a minimum of eight and a maximum of 12 for manslaughter, with the terms partially accumulated.
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