UPDATED: Grandmother murderer Jason Hawkins gets 32 years' jail for shooting Stacey Klimovitch

UPDATED, Friday, 9 February, 5 pm: The Canberra killer who executed a grandmother at her home in NSW has been sentenced to over three decades in jail.

Jason Paul Hawkins shot 61-year-old Stacey Klimovitch in the doorway of her home in the Newcastle suburb of Stockton on 9 June 2021.

A NSW Supreme Court jury found him guilty of murder and on Friday (9 February), Justice Peter Hamill convicted and sentenced him to a total of 32 years’ jail with a non-parole period of 24 years.

His head sentence will expire in 2053. But he will first be eligible for parole in November 2045, by which time he will be aged in his 70s.

Justice Hamill did not record any discount on sentencing and warned Hawkins that the Crimes (High Risk Offenders) Act 2006 applied to him.

TUESDAY: The daughters and sister of a swimming teacher who was killed in an “execution” by a Canberra man were visibly emotional when speaking about the “senseless murder of such a loving family member”.

Stacey Klimovitch, 61, died after she was shot in her doorway in the Newcastle suburb of Stockton on 9 June 2021.

Late last year, Jason Paul Hawkins, a 48-year-old from Canberra, was found guilty of murdering the grandmother at the end of a NSW Supreme Court jury trial.

The prosecution’s case was that her former son-in-law, 29-year-old Stuart Daniel Campbell, organised the killing and Hawkins used a shotgun to shoot his victim in the chest.

Campbell committed suicide in custody while he was awaiting trial.

“It could have been any one of my family to answer that door,” Stacey’s daughter Alexandra Klimovitch told Hawkins at his sentencing hearing on Tuesday (6 February).

“You stole my Mum … You stole a Nanna from an infant. There is no replacement for what you’ve taken.”

Stephanie Klimovitch, another daughter, said, “This stuff doesn’t happen in real life; you only hear about it in the movies”.

“We were all so heartbroken every day because of a decision that you made,” she said to Hawkins.

“It was insulting when you gestured to me and my family, feigning empathy.”

A third daughter, Maddie Klimovitch, told him: “You have taken my Mum away from us and the opportunities to make new memories with her.”

“The sentence you receive here will never be enough justice for taking my Mum’s life,” she said.

Her family remembered Stacey as kind, caring, smart, funny and loud, and a person who loved teaching children to swim, loved her family, and was a “beautiful, amazing Mum”. Also, she had “a laugh that was the best thing that you’ve ever heard”, Stephanie said.

“She was a force to be reckoned with. The world is worse off because she’s gone,” she said.

Justice Peter Hamill thanked the family members for telling the court about the impact of the crime.

To Alexandra, he said, “I can barely comprehend the courage that you showed last year in giving evidence in two trials”.

“Unfortunately, what Maddie said is true. The sentencing process can’t achieve what you want it to. The court can only do so much,” he said.

Later, the prosecutor argued that the “execution-shooting” of a grandmother in her home for “no apparent reason” by someone who had been recruited to commit the crime was “incomprehensible”.

“It is a contract killing or an execution,” he claimed, asking for the judge to impose a life sentence.

He also claimed it had been a contract killing “for next to nothing”, as it appeared Campbell had paid $400 for the registration for Hawkins’ car.

Hawkins’ defence lawyer disputed the degree of planning his client had been involved in and said his client’s motivation was “quite unclear”.

He suggested there may have been “misguided loyalty” to Campbell, who was his drug supplier and employer at the time, as he had been providing him with roofing work.

When the defence lawyer said the murder had been labelled a “contract killing”, Justice Hamill said, “Execution is a word that could fit the bill”.

“Misguided loyalty is just a phrase and I don’t really get it,” he said.

He will sentence Hawkins on Friday (9 February).

Hawkins, then aged 46, had been arrested in the ACT suburb of Chisholm in November 2021 before he was extradited to NSW to face his charge.