Estranged husband shoots wife dead

A woman who was shot dead by her estranged husband in Sydney's south-west yesterday had taken out an apprehended violence order against him, police said.

Just after 4pm yesterday, John Kudrytch, 39, walked into the BP service station on the Hume Highway at Casula and shot his wife, Melissa Cook, 29, who was working there.

Police arrived shortly after and conducted CPR on the victim until paramedics arrived.

Ms Cook, who had been hit in the chest, was taken to Liverpool Hospital in a critical condition but died a short time later after emergency surgery.

Four hours later police found Kudrytch dead inside the couple's former home on Pine Road, just one kilometre down the road from the service station, where he lived.

Police say it appears that he shot himself.

Police have confirmed that Ms Cook had taken out an apprehended violence order against her estranged husband, from whom she was separated and was in the process of divorcing.

A spokesman last night said "domestic violence issues" had come to the attention of police in the past.

It is not yet known when the AVO was granted or what conditions it stipulated.

The murder-suicide was the result of a domestic dispute, police said.

Kudrytch's neighbour Carina Olivos said Ms Cook and Kudrytch had been together for seven or eight years and moved in together three years ago.

Ms Olivos said Ms Cook had told her recently of the couple's separation, saying she was "free" and didn't want anything from Kudrytch, just the chance to "start a new life".

Teen gets 17 years for schoolgirl's murder

A teenager has been jailed for at least 17 years for stabbing a 15-year-old girl to death on her way home from school.

Tania Burgess was stabbed 48 times as she took a shortcut through the grounds of the Forresters Beach Resort on the New South Wales central coast in July 2005.

The Supreme Court trial had heard a possible motive was that Miss Burgess had rejected her killer's advances.

Her murderer cannot be named because he was 16 at the time of the attack.

During the trial, the court was told Miss Burgess gave a first name, high school name and grade that matched the teenager before she died.

It heard a witness, who helped the dying girl, saw a boy kneeling astride Miss Burgess as he stabbed her.

It was also told that DNA found on the clothes of the accused was the same as the victim's.

He had a cut on his hand and grazes on his knee, and his missing watch was found in a pool of blood at the scene.

The jury was told Miss Burgess' killer may have been waiting for her in the bushes.

The killer, who is now 19 years old, had admitted he was at the scene of the murder the night of the attack but maintained his innocence.

But a jury took just 90 minutes to find him guilty in March.

In handing down sentence, Justice Robert Hulme said his actions were so far out of the normal that something must have snapped.

In sentencing submissions in September, a forensic psychiatrist said the murderer had shown no signs of having a psychotic disorder since the stabbing.

The psychiatrist, Dr John Kasi-Nathan, told the court the boy had an anxiety disorder and some possible autistic traits.

Another psychiatrist, Dr Olav Nielssen, told the court that the boy probably carried out the attack while suffering a brief psychotic episode, but he said the killer had not developed a psychotic illness since the murder, despite expectations he would.

The teenager will be eligible for release in 2022.

Truckies' fuel protest clogs highway

Truckies want Commonwealth compensation for fuel and repair costs.

About 100 truck drivers are protesting against rising fuel and repair costs by driving slowly into south-west Sydney in a convoy, causing heavy traffic on the Hume Highway.

A slow-moving convoy of trucks has travelled north along the Hume Highway and the M5 motorway from the Sutton Forest service centre, south-west of the city, to the Crossroads at Casula at about 60 kilometres an hour.

Drivers travelling north from Wagga Wagga, Albury and Melbourne joined the go slow along the way, in the second protest to be staged by truckies this month.

Highway traffic is heavy between Narellan and Casula, in south-west Sydney.

Transport Workers Union spokesman Richard Olsen says unfair contracts have forced truck drivers to absorb a spike in fuel prices, while Coles and Woolworths pass on cost increases to customers.

Mr Olsen says the truckies are calling on the Federal Government to introduce legislation that would allow cost recovery from major retailers and compensate drivers for repair costs.

"A lot of these guys have not only mortgaged the house but everything else they own to keep the truck on the road," he said.

"We're still attempting to get a national determination to cover truck drivers, employees and owner drivers to get cost recovery and have safe sustainable rates within our industry for truck drivers to get paid for the work they do."