{"id":697251,"date":"2026-05-27T05:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697251\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T05:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:53:16","slug":"sydney-court-news-man-found-guilty-of-murder-after-decades-after-being-spurned-by-love-interest-in-love-triangle-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/697251\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney court news: Man found guilty of murder after decades after being spurned by love interest in love triangle murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man has been found guilty of murder after he bludgeoned a romantic rival over the head and threw his body in a river after being spurned by his love interest.<\/p>\n

Palmer told his ex-wife Renny to choose between him and Baziad, and she chose her former husband, the court heard.<\/p>\n

\"GofalGofal Baziad (pictured) was accused of murdering Jason Palmer, so he could continue a relationship with Palmer’s wife Renny. (9News)<\/p>\n

He was later bludgeoned over the head with a patterned glass object before being stabbed multiple times in the torso, side and back in his Sydney apartment in February 2004.<\/p>\n

Baziad, now 54, flew overseas months later and continued to be in contact with Palmer.<\/p>\n

He was arrested in 2024 but denied carrying out the murder.<\/p>\n

Jason and Renny Palmer were married in 1996 before separating in 2002 after he had an affair, crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield, SC, told the jury during the trial.<\/p>\n

In late 2002, she began an intimate relationship with Baziad.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Jason Palmer was murdered and his body was dumped in a river. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Despite this history, the two men became friends.<\/p>\n

In December 2003, the trio met to discuss the situation and Renny was asked to choose between the two men.<\/p>\n

When she opted for former husband, Baziad indicated he accepted the decision, the court heard.<\/p>\n

But months later, Jason was seen for the last time walking out of his partner’s home in Sydney’s south-west with Baziad.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Renny Palmer was married to Jason before linking up with Gofal. (Facebook)<\/p>\n

His body was found just over three weeks later concealed in a sleeping bag and weighed down with rocks in the Nepean River, in the city’s west.<\/p>\n

In the days after her ex-husband disappeared, Palmer said she made numerous attempts to find him, even calling his drug dealer.<\/p>\n

She also tried speaking to one of her husband’s friends, called his parents in England and filed a missing person’s report with police.<\/p>\n

She broke down in tears in the witness box while describing her efforts to locate her ex-husband.<\/p>\n

Renny said Baziad had been late collecting her for work the day after the murder.<\/p>\n

Baziad’s barrister argued there was not enough evidence to convict her client because there were no eyewitnesses and the case was circumstantial.<\/p>\n

“You won’t be able to be positively satisfied of the ultimate question: has the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that Baziad was the person responsible?” Madeleine Avenell SC told the jury.<\/p>\n

But the jurors took just over a week to conclude Baziad was ultimately responsible for Mr Palmer’s violent death.<\/p>\n

Justice Phillip Boulten thanked the jury for their service on Wednesday before convicting Baziad.<\/p>\n

He will return to court for sentencing on July 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been found guilty of murder after he bludgeoned a romantic rival over the head and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-697251","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\/697251","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=697251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}