Angry with his neighbours for turning off the hose he used to water the communal garden in their apartment complex, Rodney Lee turned to murder.
Lee was jailed for 30 years on Monday, having pleaded guilty to murdering Saumotu Gasio, 62, and Tibor Laszlo, 57 at their Melbourne public housing complex in January last year.
The Victorian supreme court was told Lee, 74, had taken an active role in maintaining the communal areas at the Mordialloc complex since 2006, including tending to the garden. He would often leave the hose running to water his plants.
Lee’s relationship with neighbours deteriorated in 2020 when he took exception to loud music and the consumption of alcohol in communal spaces. When a new resident moved in the next year, Lee began to make complaints to police about a suspicion the man was cooking and dealing drugs.
Issues over the tap peaked in January 2022. Lee struck a man with a garden chair in a confrontation about it being turned off, the court heard.
“If you turn off the hose again you bastards, I’ll f***ing kill you,” Lee had shouted, according to court documents.
And he did. Furious about finding the tap turned off again, Lee confronted a group in a social gathering at the units.
Gasio commented that water was precious. Lee told Gasio that he was a worthless individual and Gasio asked Lee to leave the gathering.
Lee went to his unit, got his grandfather’s shotgun from under his bed and returned, shooting Gasio in the upper arm and chest.
Gasio and Laszlo ran to a ground floor apartment to hide from Lee, who reloaded the shotgun and followed them. Lee then fired and hit Laszo in the chest while he was trying to save Gasio on the floor of the unit.
Both men were pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
Lee surrendered himself to police a short time later, admitting “I killed them”.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to serve at least 24 years before he is eligible for parole, meaning he will likely die in prison.
Justice James Elliott noted that Lee had repeatedly confessed in his police interview to killing the men, but rather than express regret or remorse he perceived himself as a victim.
“I’ve been provoked a bit, haven’t I?” Lee had asked police.
He told police that Gasio had “absolutely nothing to do with this” before asking rhetorically “why didn’t he just leave the hose alone”.
The court heard Lee suffers chronic pain, uses a wheelchair and was highly likely to be suffering from a paranoid personality disorder.
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