Mikhail Pandey-Johnson, Karl Nuku and Rhys Fournier appear at the High Court in New Plymouth, during their trial for the murder of Dean Browne. Photo / NZ Herald
Mikhail Pandey-Johnson, Karl Nuku and Rhys Fournier appear at the High Court in New Plymouth, during their trial for the murder of Dean Browne. Photo / NZ Herald
Two members of the Killer Clown Fiends gang have received life sentences with a minimum non-parole period of 18 years for the murder of 38-year-old Auckland man Dean Browne in the "body-in-the-garage" trial.
The jury last month took four hours to unanimously find Mikhail Pandey-Johnson, 23, and Karl Nuku, 19,guilty after a five-week trial in the High Court at New Plymouth.
A third defendant, Rhys Fournier, 22, was found not guilty in an 11-1 majority verdict.
The trio were part of a group that called themselves the Killer Clown Fiends.
Mr Browne was killed with a hammer in a Wellington flat on January 21 last year.
On the instructions of Pandey-Johnson, the leader of a drug-dealing gang, Nuku repeatedly struck Mr Browne over the head with a hammer before his body was dumped in the garage of a New Plymouth house.
Justice Woolford said it was a "cold-blooded murder" committed on Mr Browne while he was sleeping.
Stepdad Ron and mother Faye Bishop said they were pleased the sentence was as at the upper end of what the justice system allowed.
They were given considerable leeway by Judge Woolford in their victim impact statements, but said the statement had still been censored.
The couple were forced to refer to the convicted murders as "the accused".
"Eighteen years or 80 years, it's never going to bring Dean back," said Faye Bishop.
