‘You robbed him of life’: Benjamin John Elliott sentenced over brutal Busselton axe murder of mate Sam Riley

The meth addict whose violent life of crime culminated in him murdering a mate with an axe has been jailed for life — still refusing to say why he did it, and telling one of WA’s most respected judges to “hurry up” before he was locked up for at least 22 years. Late last year Benjamin John Elliott, 33, was found guilty of the brutal, unprovoked killing of Sam Riley at his Busselton home in October, 2018. WA’s Supreme Court heard that Elliott was let into Mr Riley’s Carter Street unit on the night of October 29, 2018, with the intention of injecting prescription opioids together. Elliott then slept in his the spare bed. But at some stage he got up, carried a small axe to where Mr Riley was lying, and launched a sudden and unexpected attack — inflicting 21 “chop-like, deeply incised wounds” to Mr Riley’s head. Injuries to Mr Riley’s left hand showed he had also tried to shield himself from the blows. With police hunting the killer in the popular tourist town, they found a Fiskars Tomahawk axe in a canal behind the unit. Mr Riley’s mother gave a heartbreaking insight into her grief, in a bid to find the killer. And having interviewed him once before letting him go, DNA results showed Elliott had been in Mr Riley’s apartment — and he was charged with his murder. During his trial, Elliott bizarrely chose to represent himself — changing his original claim that he had not been in the flat, to admitting he had but leaving with Mr Riley very much alive. A jury rejected that, even without knowing the shocking violent past of Elliott. In 2008, he was convicted of being part of a gang who drove a victim to the bush, bound him to a tree before assaulting him. In 2012, Elliott attacked a prison officer, and then a prisoner by stabbing him in the head and neck with a fork. And last year, he was found guilty of a vicious attack on a 77-year-old cyclist near Innaloo, hitting him with a bottle and then kicking him while he was down. Like in that trial, Elliott defended himself on the murder charge. When Justice Stephen Hall asked him if he wanted to say anything before sentencing, Elliott said: “Just hurry up”. “Your actions robbed Sam Riley of his life in a most brutal way and ended his hopes and plans for the future,” Justice Hall said. Parole will not be available until April, 2042.