Drug lord Brok Seckold was obsessed with his business, so when he mistakenly thought his ice cook had betrayed him, the punishment was horrific.
Yengo Faugere, 23, was taken from his home, driven 200km out of Melbourne, shot in the head and dismembered.
Seckold then put the body in a portable cooler and tried to sink it in Port Phillip Bay.
When that did not work, he dissolved it in acid.
All this because Seckold thought Mr Faugere had been siphoning his chemicals and stealing his drugs.
But he was not.
Victorian Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry said more serious cases of murder were few and far between.
"This is a horrific narrative," Justice Lasry said on Friday.
He sentenced Seckold to 32 years in prison for the October 2011 murder, saying the 31-year-old did not stop to hesitate doing such a terrible thing to another human being.
"All you could contemplate was either punishment of Faugere or protection of your drug business," Justice Lasry said.
Seckold was obsessed with succeeding in the drug trade, the judge said, and apart from a desire to make money by selling drugs, there was little that explained how he could plan and commit such a callous killing.
Four months after Mr Faugere's death, police found some of Mr Faugere's remains in a barrel on the back of a ute in the Victorian coastal town of St Leonards.
It was discovered at the fourth lab of Seckold's that police had raided.
Seckold started, financed and co-ordinated the criminal enterprise that manufactured commercial quantities of the drug ice.
After police shut down his Canterbury operation, where Mr Faugere worked, in 2011, Seckold opened another drug lab in Kew.
Police shut it down, so Seckold set up a lab in Reservoir.
When that was raided, he moved his operations to St Leonards.
Justice Lasry said it seemed Seckold thought he could "defeat" the police.
Mr Faugere's mother, Florence Pinto, said she was happy the long and distressing process had come to an end.
"That brings some closure to us, his family, and his younger brothers," Ms Pinto told reporters.
Seckold, of Maribyrnong, denied killing Mr Faugere but was found guilty of murder and kidnapping by a jury.
He must serve 25 years before being eligible for parole.
His sentence also took into account a guilty plea for weapons and drug-trafficking charges.
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