Allecha Boyd's killer ex used her public execution 'to foster reputation as hard man', court hears
'According to facts tendered to the Supreme Court in Wagga Wagga, Shephard shot Ms Boyd a number of times in front of two witnesses and, together with accomplice Anthony Shane Hagan, buried her body in nearby Lester State Forest.
On Monday, Shephard was described by prosecutor Trevor Bailey as an influential drug dealer in the region, who used the
public execution of Ms Boyd to build his reputation as a fearsome man who dealt harshly with anyone who crossed him or his family.'
Mr Bailey ( State Prosecutor) described Shephard's actions on the fateful night as "arrogant, ambitious and audacious".
"This offender intended to foster a reputation for himself in the world of drugs in which he moved as a hard man," he said.
"It was no accident that this murder was committed in front of witnesses — that was precisely what he had intended to happen.
"This was an offence with a good deal of thought and planning.'
Well..... I suppose one's rep as a 'hard man' of Coolamon, ( 1 crossroad, 2 shops open, a tiny shabby hall, ) has to be maintained. Drugs and all the paraphernalia surrounding the use , addiction , the buying, the selling, the production , the networking, the ambience, the bloody relentless persistence about the whole industry is something that is almost tailor made for huge swaths of Western NSW.
The loneliness, the hopelessness , the underlying determination to live outside the boundaries... the competition is fierce, the rewards so small. Shephard's take home pay and certainly Hagens would be minute, tiny, barely enough to pay the rent, yet! it meant life and death, someone else's death to pay for it.
Of course, Allecha could have been more savvy, more street wise, less naïve, all those things and more, she was not a country girl, though... it all looks so harmless and so lifeless and so eternally the same... she would never have realized how her approach was never , ever going to work out there. Never.
