Ashley Bropho killer: Evan James Martin jailed for life after murdering child thief in Hakea prison

An inmate who murdered a high-profile child thief in prison and told him to close his eyes, imagine his victims’ faces and say goodbye as he brutally attacked him has been sentenced to life in prison.

Evan James Martin, 43, launched two vicious attacks on Ashley Bropho within a day of each other at Perth’s Hakea Prison in March 2023. The second attack claimed the life of the child abductor.

Bropho, the half-brother of Terence Kelly who kidnapped four-year-old Cleo Smith in 2021, was awaiting sentencing for kidnapping a nine-year-old boy from a park near his home near the coastal suburb of Doubleview, west of Perth. in 2022.

In the first attack in March 2023, Martin smashed Bropho’s head against shelves inside a cell and stood on top of him to restrain him so another inmate could punch and stomp on his head.

READ MORE: Stepbrother of Cleo Smith’s kidnapper accused of kidnapping nine-year-old girl off suburban street

The next day M.Artin ambushed Bropho and used guillotine choke to render Bropho unconscious in a cell.

Martin then used all of his weight to stand on Bropho’s throat, crushing his larynx.

“Right now, you are the weak and vulnerable one like the victims were…imagine their faces and say goodbye,” Martin told Bropho.

He then called on the intercom to ask for the “boss” and a set of handcuffs.

Martin proudly admitted the murder to other inmates.

A court heard he attacked the child thief after discovering that a fellow prisoner who had been sexually abused as a child was upset to learn Bropho was his new cellmate.

Upon learning this, Martin allegedly assured his friend, “I will kill him.”

A month later, Martin told another inmate that he was going to “do the public a service” by getting rid of a sex offender.

In 2020, Martin attempted to murder another sex offender using two crude knives at Acacia Prison in 2020, which he did with another accomplice inmate who had kept him in jail.

Sentencing him to another life sentence, WA Supreme Court Justice Bruno Fiannaca said Martin acted as “judge and executioner” in the cold-blooded, premeditated murder of Bropho.

“It was not something that happened suddenly,” said Judge Fiannaca, Western Australia reported.

“You considered it justified to kill him.”

Evan James Martin said he was forced to launch attacks on Ashley Bropho after a friend complained about having him as a cellmate (file image)

Martin, who suffers from chronic paranoid schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, told the court he felt “very guilty about the murder and expressed that guilt in confessional letters as well.”

However, Judge Fiannaca said he could not detect any “remorse or empathy” in Martin.

“You have no shame,” Judge Fiannaca said.

‘There is nothing I can see that indicates you intend to change.

Martin posed a very significant risk of committing further violent crimes and was given an additional minimum prison sentence of 21 years.

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