Woman jailed 15 years for killing elderly neighbour

Narelle Fiona Smith, 48, was found guilty of murdering 77-year-old retired solicitor Peter James McCarthy at South Coogee in December 2020.

He was found dead on the floor of his two-bedroom unit on the top floor of a public housing block where he had lived for 12 years.

A bent frying pan was found near his body, which was draped with a tarp.

Smith was charged in January 2021, first identified as a person of interest after her fingerprints were found on the door of Mr McCarthy's unit.

She was found guilty by a jury in November 2022.

NSW Supreme Court Justice Mark Ierace on Friday jailed her for 24 years with a non-parole period of 15 years.

She will be first eligible for parole in September 2036.

Justice Ierace said Smith committed the murder in an "explosive and sustained" fit of anger.

"The ferocity and brutality of the offender's attack was extreme," he said.

Mr McCarthy was murdered in his own home, which was left ransacked, and Smith took his credit cards and Opal card.

It was an escalation of Smith's recent pattern of violence characterised by explosive outbursts of physical harm and property damage, which she knew was triggered by her consumption of alcohol, the judge said.

"Clearly, the offender requires intensive psychiatric and drug and alcohol abuse therapy," Justice Ierace said, remaining uncertain about her prospects of rehabilitation.

Smith was exposed to extreme neglect and abuse in her childhood, diagnosed with PTSD and borderline personality disorder, which reduced her moral culpability, however she had still not accepted responsibility, the judge wrote.

It was submitted on Smith's behalf she was nevertheless upset by Mr McCarthy's death, becoming emotional during evidence at the trial.

"That evidence was necessarily graphic, causing the jury to be visibly distressed as well," Justice Ierace said.

Australian Associated Press