A Queensland woman has been jailed for manslaughter after she helped clean up a home where a couple were forced into a toolbox before being dumped in a creek.

December 3, 2019

A mother of seven who helped to clean a Brisbane unit where a couple were tortured before being forced into a metal toolbox and dumped in a creek has been jailed for manslaughter.

Ngatokoona Mareiti, 40, didn’t have a hand in the murder of Cory Breton, 28, and Iuliana Triscaru, 31, at a lagoon on Scrubby Creek in Kingston in January 2016.

But she spotted them sitting on a couch with their hands tied behind their back at a home she visited to buy drugs in the hours before it happened, the Brisbane Supreme Court heard on Tuesday.

“They’d obviously been assaulted and interrogated by other accused. She would have noticed Breton was bleeding from the mouth,” prosecutor David Meredith said.

Later, Mareiti heard the pair screaming from inside the toolbox before it was loaded into a ute and dumped in the creek.

Their bodies were too badly decomposed to determine if the pair drowned or suffocated, he said.

She also purchased cleaning products under the direction of one of her co-accused and helped clean the unit where the couple had been detained, Mr Meredith said.

Mareiti was initially charged with double murder but pleaded guilty to two counts of the lesser charge of manslaughter, which the Crown accepted.

She was jailed for nine years but with time served will be eligible for parole in June next year.

In sentencing, Justice David Boddice said the victims died horrible deaths and that Mareiti assisted her co-accused when she “knew that the unlawful killing was a probable consequence”.

But he accepted she was not involved in their initial detention, physical assault and “the dreadful way they were dealt with which led to their deaths.”

“Your involvement was, however, significant … It was apparent from the fact they were tied up right from the start that this was a dreadful event,” Justice Boddice said.

“You did nothing about contacting the authorities. You did nothing about attempting to encourage the others to desist in their conduct.

“By your dreadful and, what I consider, despicable deeds, you allowed events to unfold that caused the deaths of these two people.”

The court heard Mareiti was friends with Ms Triscaru and their children played together.

“The decisions (she) made showed a complete lack of human decency in relation to those poor victims,” Justice Boddice said.

The court heard Mareiti, a New Zealand citizen, is likely to be deported upon release.

Seven other co-accused who are charged with murdering the pair are still awaiting trial.