Man bought life insurance on dad before hacking him to death with samurai sword
A man who took out huge insurance policies on his father's life then hacked him to death with a samurai sword has been found guilty of murder by a jury in Lismore.
Michael Martin Jr played the grieving son but his lies were exposed by investigators who suspected the horrible truth.
Video of the moment detectives decided Martin was a suspect in his father has emerged.
“Michael, you're not free to leave the police station anymore,” a detective tells him in an interview.
“Really? what's going on?” he asks.
“At this stage, we're going to place you under arrest,” the cop tells him.
“Ahhh, f**off,” he says.
“For the murder of your father,” the cop says.
Motivated by greed he was set to benefit from his father, Michael Martin Snr's three life insurance policies that he took out himself worth $2.5 million.
The first attempt in April 2015 failed after a fake home invasion left Martin’s father in a coma with critical head injuries.
On the night he left hospital two months later Martin took him to his Murwillumbah home.
It was there he hacked and slashed at his own father 12 times with a samurai sword, bound his own wrists and blamed masked intruders.
Martin told investigators he “bawled” at his father’s feet.
“That's the honest to god truth,” he said.
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“That is what happened that night.”
But police knew it wasn't even when he fronted a media conference to help catch his dad's killers.
A confession letter was the most damning.
"I feel so guilty the animal side got the better of me,” he wrote to his wife Candace.
"I carried through with my plan".
It took the jury close to five days to find Michael Martin Jnr guilty of killing his father.
He'll be sentenced on February 7.
