A Sydney killer says he can't give the victim's family closure because the young man's beaten body was put in a large toolbox and sent to a scrap metal yard.
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Jack Davies, 29, is among four people - dubbed the Blood Brothers - who admitted to killing South Windsor man Brendan Vollmost in late-March 2015.
Mr Vollmost was filmed sprinting into his property, trailed by the four men, moments before he was bashed in his backyard shed.
His body has never been found, and never will be, Davies told a packed courtroom during the quartet's sentence hearing.
"I can't give the Vollmosts any closure," Davies told the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday.
Davies and his co-offenders - Jamie Michael Tilley, 37, William Patrick Thomas and Mitchell James Bentley, both 29 - pleaded guilty to manslaughter and an additional charge of concealing a corpse earlier this year.
At least three violent blows were inflicted on Mr Vollmost in the shed by Davies and Bentley before Thomas and Tilley carried the limp body down the driveway and placed him on the back seat of the group's station wagon. The group then drove away.
Davies said the quartet - convinced they'd be caught by police the next morning - sliced up the Hyundai and buried it in a national park.
Mr Vollmost's body was stored in a large tradies' toolbox until Davies decided to take it to a scrap metal yard, hiding it in the back of a dark station wagon due to be scrapped.
"Brendan had been at my house for some time. I just wanted the problem gone," he said.
"The station wagon ... presented an opportunity."
He rejected the Crown's suggestion he made up that story to hide the body's actual location and the chance for police to examine the wounds.
It made "no sense" to be sentenced for an additional charge and not give closure to Mr Vollmost's mother, Tammy Slade, Davies said.
"The body is f***ing gone and I can't bring it back. I'm sorry but that's the way it is" he said.
"I'm not a thief. I'm not a murderer."
Davies said he realised the gravity of the bashing when he saw Mr Vollmost was dead and was "truly sorry" to the victim's family, especially Mr Vollmost's younger siblings.
"I'm just so sorry that we're here today because of me."
The quartet, arrested after six months on the run, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the eve of a second Supreme Court trial this year.
Their first trial - in which they pleaded not guilty to murder and kidnapping - resulted in a hung jury.
They will be sentenced on November 29.
Australian Associated Press
