What Harley Hicks did was totally and utterly evil.
Whether to save himself from discovery as he burgled a house, or because of a much darker force within him, Hicks bashed to death a harmless, defenceless and helpless baby for nothing more than a wallet and a pair of sunglasses.
Hicks, 21, has been jailed for life for his savagery, which shattered the lives of all who knew and loved 10-month-old Zayden Veal-Whitting.
Hicks has offered no explanation for why he bashed little Zayden about the face, head and body more than 30 times with a heavy home-made baton of copper wire and tape as he robbed the Bendigo house.
Zayden suffered a crushed skull, a broken collar bone and a broken rib.
"It is almost unthinkable that any human being could have carried out such a sickening crime that you have committed," Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye said in sentencing Hicks on Friday.
"What you did was totally and utterly evil."
The truth behind Hicks' motive may never be known. Hicks won't say. Perhaps he disturbed the little boy, who had a cold and was not sleeping well the morning Hicks beat the life out of him.
Justice Kaye said he could not say for sure if Hicks had viciously snuffed out a baby's cry.
"If that constituted your motive for killing Zayden, then you murdered an innocent child so that you could escape the premises with the valuable items that you had stolen from it," he said.
"On the other hand, if that was not your motive, then your murder of Zayden was simply an act of unmitigated evil committed by you for the sheer sake of it.
"On either view, there are absolutely no extenuating circumstances attaching to your appalling crime."
Hicks, who will spend at least 32 years in jail, showed no remorse or humanity throughout his trial, Justice Kaye said.
"At no stage of the trial could I detect from you any sign of remorse. Nor was there even the slightest indication by you of any pity or sympathy for the baby, whose life you had taken, or for his family, whose lives you have shattered.
"Rather, you seemed totally oblivious and impervious to such human feelings."
Hicks used marijuana and ice before the murder, committed amid a spate of burglaries in the Bendigo suburb of Long Gully in June 2012.
The judge said Hicks, formerly of North Bendigo, had a history of drug and alcohol dependency, an unstable upbringing and had been repeatedly sexually assaulted.
But Justice Kaye said he was concerned about Hicks' lack of remorse, lengthy criminal record and anti-social personality disorder with borderline features.
"Any person who is capable of perpetrating the appalling crime which you committed is clearly a grave danger to the community and especially the defenceless and vulnerable members of it."
Hicks' supporters did not comment as they left the court but his twin brother Ashley posted on Facebook: "The darkest day of my life is today."
Their mother Wendy Clark replied: "there is. no justice" (sic).
For Hicks and his loved ones, the trial is over.
For Casey Veal, who found her little boy's bloodied, battered body in his cot and maintained a stoic presence throughout the trial, and for her family, the torment continues.
Ms Veal said she would be able to tell Zayden's brother when he's older that somebody had paid for what they did to him.
"We know that justice has been served for Zayden," she told The Herald Sun.
But Ms Veal said no prison term would ever be long enough.
"I will live my life without Zayden and it's its own prison sentence for me."
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