Australian man finally jailed for 19-year-old gay murder
An Australian man who murdered Ecuadorian Felipe Flores in Sydney back in 1991, has been jailed for a minimum of eleven-and-a-half years.
Paul Darcy Armstrong, 47, was sentenced by the New South Wales Supreme Court today after being found guilty by a jury back in April this year.
Summing up prior to sentencing, Justice Terrence Buddin said that Armstrong had picked up Mr Flores, then 27, in a Sydney gay bar in September 1991. According to the Australian Associated Press, Mr Flores’ brutally beaten body was found in a deserted neighbourhood just half an hour after friends saw him leave with a “tall” man.
Justice Budden described the attack as “savage and sustained” and that Mr Flores had “mercifully” died almost immediately after the beating.
Mr Flores had been HIV Positive and there was, said the judge, the possibility that his imparting this news to Armstrong triggered the attack.
Armstrong was arrested in 2008 after DNA tests matched him conclusively to matter found beneath Mr Flores’ fingernails and blood spilt on his shirt.
Armstrong, a father of two who was diagnosed HIV Positive in 1999, denied ever having known Mr Flores after being shown a picture of him. However, he did admit to having been sexually promiscusous during the period in question. He was sentenced to 17 years but will be eligible for parole in 2021 after only 11 years.
The victim’s sister, Ines Flores, read an emotional statement to the court in which she described her late brother as a “generous and caring man”.
