The man who murdered Tamworth-based environmental officer Glen Turner has died in jail.
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Ian Robert Turnbull died in prison on Monday, after being taken to a Sydney hospital.
Corrective Services NSW confirmed the 82-year-old had died in custody.
“CSNSW can confirm that an 82-year-old inmate died at Prince of Wales Hospital. He had a terminal illness,” the spokesperson said.
Turnbull was sentenced to a "de facto life sentence" of 35 years behind bars for the killing of Mr Turner, who was working as a compliance officer for the Office of Environment, near Moree in 2014.
Last year, Justice Peter Johnson sentenced Turnbull to a minimum of 24 years in jail for the "terrifying and shattering" murder of Mr Turner on a remote laneway, at Croppa Creek on July 29, 2014.
In the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney, Justice Johnson said it was a de facto life sentence for the elderly farmer, who had a life expectancy of just eight years in jail.
Turnbull was found guilty of murder in 2016 after a five-week trial where the jury heard the shooting followed years of tension over illegal land-clearing.
Turnbull pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of substantial impairment due to mental illness, but the jury rejected Turnbull's defence, after one day of deliberations.
They found him guilty of the more substantial charge of murder.
When sentencing Turnbull last year, Justice Peter Johnson told the court that the 35-year maximum sentence was a de facto life sentence for the farmer.
"I have taken into account that this sentence will almost certainly constitute a de facto life sentence with the offender dying in custody before the expiration of the non-parole period," the judge said.
"I am satisfied that no lesser sentence is appropriate in all the circumstances of the case."
He also said he did not accept that Turnbull had shown genuine remorse for the murder.
"The events ... involved the offender prolonging the process of murdering Mr Turner, thereby heightening the terror to which Mr Turner was subjected, before the final and fatal show was fired," he said.
During a sentencing hearing in Sydney last year, Ms McKenzie said she could not comprehend how someone could hurt another person in that manner.
"He [her husband] was treated like a feral pig," she said in a statement read to the court by a family member.
She said her family was "broken" by her husband's death.
"The world had swallowed me up," she said of the moment when she found out he had died.
Breanna Chillingworth
Northern Daily Leader Senior Crime and Court Reporter
Northern Daily Leader Senior Crime and Court Reporter
