Aussie killer who took ‘delight' in murdering dad and stepmum fights sentence 10 years after he was jailed

News.com.au

25-07-2025

Warning: Distressing content.
A man who took a 'chilling' delight in killing his father and stepmother is fighting his 42-year jail sentence more than a decade after the brutal crimes.
Corey Breen was jailed for 42 years with a non-parole period of 33 years in 2015 after he murdered his father, Paul Breen, and stepmother, Felicia Crawford.
Breen in 2013 used a hunting knife to smash the glass panels of the unlocked front door of his father's North Sydney home before kicking the door open on Good Friday.
Breen later admitted to police he had smashed the glass to give his dad the 'f**king spooks before I killed the c**t'.
Paul screamed out before his son stabbed him 15 times, killing him 'on the spot'.
Ms Crawford tried to hide behind the door of a converted bedroom in the garage just outside the home, but Breen used the door to pin her against the wall before stabbing her 10 times.
She managed to stagger back to her bedroom, falling from her bed before she died.
Two young children were inside the home and witnessed the horrific murders, with judge Jane Mathews saying they would be affected by the events for the rest of their lives.
After spending more than 10 years in prison, Breen, now 38, is fighting his sentence in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
He argued in his grounds of appeal that Judge Mathews made several errors in sentencing, including by taking into account nine connected offences from a crime spree Breen embarked on the afternoon of the murders.
It included stabbing a bystander in the face that caused a 'significant' laceration that required emergency treatment.
His grounds of appeal also allege Judge Mathews made mistakes determining Breen's overall non-parole period in finding the offences involved multiple victims and a series of criminal acts and by determining previous convictions were an aggravating factor.
Killer's 'violent fantasies'
Breen had been 'nursing violent fantasies' long before killing his parents, evidenced by a chilling letter he wrote to his mum in 2009.
He wrote he was 'happy, fun and would do anything for my friends', but things changed when he was alone.
'I get very angry and plot out murders of people I hate. I do it all in my head. I run over it again and again refining every detail,' Breen wrote.
'They are always extremely horrific and extremely brutal.
'I'm scared someday soon the monster that I've kept locked away for so long will finally reach the surface.'
He wrote that people would suffer and die if the 'monster' was unleashed, acknowledging the thoughts were 'evil' and he had not acted on them because nothing had 'pushed (him) quite that far yet'.
'But I do feel it is close,' he wrote.
Judge Mathews said in her judgment the 'letter assumes a highly chilling quality when one considers the circumstances of these offences, more than 3½ years later.'
His mum encouraged him to seek psychological help after she received the letter, but Breen appeared to keep his 'evil' thoughts to himself.
He threatened to kill several of his relatives the following year over the belief they didn't support him enough when he lost his job after he was convicted for a 2009 assault at work.
By 2011, he was estranged from his entire family.
'Ur dead': Disturbing text before murders
Breen began his crime spree in the hours before the homicide by assaulting his girlfriend.
He armed himself with a 19cm hunting knife and took out a rifle at one point, but a guest at his home managed to confiscate it before Breen walked out of the home with the blade.
Running at a female bystander, Breen changed course and stabbed a man in the face before stealing a woman's bike and unleashing at a nearby convenience store.
There, he assaulted another two bystanders and his girlfriend – who had followed him to try to calm him down – and tried to steal a car.
He knocked over shelves in a bid to get to one of the bystanders and take his keys, stabbing at the staff door the man had hid behind.
As the chaos unfolded, Breen texted his girlfriend's mum, writing 'Ur dead u filthy c**t', and stole a car from a nearby home before driving to his grandparents' home with the intent to kill them.
Once there he stole another car and drove to his friends' home to steal guns to use to kill his parents.
A resident who was home refused to give him a shotgun, and he squeezed her hand holding the keys to a firearm storage room tightly.
He eventually let her go and left after taking her phone, at which point he drove to his dad's house.
Police caught him a short time later, with an officer telling him he was under arrest for several stabbings and car theft.
'Multiple murder, mate,' Breen replied.
'I achieved my mission.'
Son's 'delight' in killing parents
Judge Mathews said both Paul and Ms Crawford's final moments must have been 'filled with unimaginable fear and horror', the 'horrendous' events sparked after something inside Breen 'snapped'.
In a 'chilling' interview with police after the murders, Breen revealed he had been on his way to his mum's house when he was caught, saying he would have 'knifed her', his mum's boyfriend, his siblings, 'and whoever else was there'.
He told officers he'd had a 'time bomb' sitting in his head and he knew he would kill his dad sooner or later.
'Just tonight was the night,' he said in his police interview.
Judge Mathews said Breen expressed 'pleasure' over the killings, telling officers of his 'absolute pure hatred' for Paul and Ms Crawford because of his 'sh*t upbringing'.
'The delight he expressed in having murdered the two victims is quite chilling,' Judge Mathews said of Breen's police interview.
Breen later told a forensic psychiatrist that he didn't remember any events surrounding the murders or the interview:
He said: 'The person in the interview is not me … it sends my blood chilling.'
Judge Mathews noted Breen had told a forensic psychiatrist that he was drinking heavily on the day of the killings and was taking an antidepressant, the doctor later diagnosing him with a substance abuse disorder.
He found while Breen did set out to kill his dad and stepmum, it was not planned in advance.
That, along with Breen's 'deep remorse' and findings he had reasonable prospects of rehabilitation, meant the offences fell short of the maximum imprisonment of life in jail, Judge Mathews said.
Breen will fight his sentence during an appeal hearing on October 22.