{"id":530837,"date":"2026-03-10T10:37:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/530837\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T10:37:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:37:16","slug":"teenage-killers-appeal-upsets-slain-grandmother-vyleen-whites-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/530837\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage killer’s appeal upsets slain grandmother Vyleen White’s family"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teenager who killed a grandmother and triggered landmark youth justice laws<\/a> has appealed his sentence, devastating the victim’s family.<\/p>\n

An advocate today said the boy’s appeal was an insult to Vyleen White’s traumatised family and there would be community outrage if the original sentence was not upheld.<\/p>\n

The boy was 16 years old when he fatally stabbed White during a carjacking outside a shopping centre west of Brisbane<\/a> in February 2024.\"VyleenVyleen White, 70, was attacked near her car in an underground car park at Town Square Redbank Plains shopping centre in Ipswich, south-west of Brisbane. (Nine)<\/p>\n

However, they were not retroactive and the boy was sentenced under the state’s previous laws, receiving a 16-year jail term.<\/p>\n

The teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced in November 2025.<\/p>\n

He is likely to be released from custody in late 2033, about the time of his 26th birthday, after 60 per cent of his sentence with time already served.<\/p>\n

The boy appealed, claiming 16 years was excessive for a non-premeditated murder.<\/p>\n

Arguments against the teen’s sentence were an insult, Victims 1st ambassador Lyndy Atkinson said outside court.<\/p>\n

“A precedent needed to be set and this was the right precedent to be set,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"VyleenVyleen White, 70, was attacked near her car in an underground car park at Town Square Redbank Plains shopping centre in Ipswich, south-west of Brisbane. (Nine)<\/p>\n

Atkinson said the White family were devastated by the appeal.<\/p>\n

“They are too traumatised to attend. I think it’s an insult to the family and there will be community outrage if the original sentence is not upheld,” she said.<\/p>\n

The sentencing judge had made an error, defence barrister Matthew Hynes told the Court of Appeal justices today.<\/p>\n

“This is a case where there is a single stab with fleeting attention,” Hynes said.<\/p>\n

The teen was serving the highest sentence handed down in Queensland<\/a> for a 16-year-old who killed someone via a single stab wound, the justices heard.<\/p>\n

Justice David Boddice said a brief moment of intent to kill or cause life-threatening injury that turns fatal was enough for murder.<\/p>\n

“That’s the offence, that’s how you get to murder: one moment,” Boddice said.<\/p>\n

The teen quickly approached the 70-year-old grandmother and demanded her car keys before inflicting a “non-survivable” 17cm deep knife wound, Chief Justice Helen Bowskill said at sentencing.<\/p>\n

He did not hesitate before stabbing the grandmother as she held up her hands and backed away.<\/p>\n

The boy stole White’s 2009 Hyundai Getz hatchback and drove it to a nearby residential area where he showed it off to other teens.<\/p>\n

CCTV footage had captured the teen deliberately stabbing White as she tried to get away, Director of Public Prosecutions Todd Fuller told the justices<\/a> today.<\/p>\n

“The sentence falls well short of being described as being manifestly excessive,” he said.<\/p>\n

Bowskill’s sentence was made in the context of community demands for greater protection from violent young criminals and increased knife crime in public.<\/p>\n

“It was accepted that this was murder was particularly heinous,” Fuller said.<\/p>\n

The three justices reserved their decision.<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenager who killed a grandmother and triggered landmark youth justice laws has appealed his sentence, devastating the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-530837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}