Danielle Easey murder: man who dumped body will walk out of jail within the week

THE man who covered up the brutal murder of Danielle Easey and dumped her body in Cockle Creek will walk out of jail within the week after he was granted supervised parole during a closed meeting on Thursday.

After two trials, Justin Kent Dilosa was last year acquitted of murdering Ms Easey, a jury left with some doubt that he was directly involved in the killing and present in a bedroom at Narara when Ms Easey was brutally stabbed and struck in the head with a hammer.

Another jury had found Carol Marie McHenry, Dilosa's ex-partner, guilty of murdering her former friend and Dilosa had pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder, admitting to being involved in the cover-up and dumping of Ms Easey's body.

While McHenry was jailed for a maximum of 22 years and six months, Dilosa was in December sentenced to a maximum of six years behind bars, with a non-parole period of four years.

With that jail term backdated to Dilosa's arrest in September, 2019, he had essentially been sentenced to time served.

Danielle Easey was killed and her body dumped in Cockle Creek in 2019. In December, Justin Dilosa was sentenced to time served for covering up her murder.

But the NSW State Parole Authority (SPA) told the Newcastle Herald in December that Dilosa would not be released without a "comprehensive" pre-release report from Community Corrections and he remained behind bars.

On Thursday, Dilosa faced a closed meeting before the parole board that ended with him being granted parole on a number of strict conditions, including an order banning him from entering Newcastle, Lake Macquarie or the Central Coast.

Dilosa will be released from jail within the next seven days, the SPA said.

Justin Dilosa after his arrest in 2019. He later denies being involved in Danielle Easey's murder, but admits to the cover-up. He was sentenced to time served in December and will be released within the week.

"The NSW State Parole Authority has granted Justin Dilosa parole with strict conditions, finding supervised reintegration at this time is appropriate and in the interests of community safety," the SPA said in a statement. "Following his sentencing, the SPA requested a comprehensive pre-release report, ahead of his parole meeting today. In the report, community corrections advised Dilosa is remorseful and accepts responsibility for his crime and the impact on the victim's family, his own family, and the broader community. Recommending release to parole, the report cited he has been assessed as a low risk of re-offending, his lack of prior criminal history, his progress towards rehabilitation while in custody and willingness to engage in further interventions in the community."

As well as the standard conditions of parole, Dilosa must not use drugs, contact Ms Easey's family or McHenry or visit Lake Macquarie, Newcastle and Central Coast, the local government areas where he lived before his arrest and where Ms Easey was murdered and dumped.

After initially covering for McHenry, Dilosa pointed the finger at his ex during the first trial and confessed to being involved in the cover-up and dumping of Ms Easey's body.

And despite the weight of evidence that he was involved after the killing, the prosecution case against him being present in the bedroom during Ms Easey's murder was a purely circumstantial one.

There was no direct evidence linking him to the murder. No CCTV, no DNA, no eyewitness.

But on the night she died, Dilosa admitted to burning his beloved pig-hunting knife in a backyard bonfire at Cardiff before he later returned to the house at Narara.

Carol McHenry was last year found guilty of murdering Danielle Easey and later jailed until at least 2035.

There he wrapped up Ms Easey's body and drove it around in a "makeshift coffin" for several days before dumping it in Cockle Creek not far from Wakefield Road at Killingworth.

Dilosa claimed he did all this not because he was responsible, but because he wanted to protect the real killer, McHenry.

And he also repeatedly confessed to a number of associates in the drug world, telling almost anyone who would listen that he "took responsibility".

But Dilosa said he had either never made those "admissions" and if he had they were uttered only to take the rap for McHenry, who he said he did not want to see separated from her children.

The jury's not guilty verdict meant they must have accepted his version about falling asleep in his van, which he gave during his first murder trial in late 2022, and found that when he was confessing to the killing he was doing so in a "bizarre" and "ludicrous" drug-addled attempt to protect McHenry.

Dilosa's sentence in December came as a shock to members of Ms Easey's family, who had been in court to read emotive victim impact statements.

"When you were told by Carol of the savage attack on Danielle, did you turn the car around to render first aid?" Ms Collier asked. "Did you call the police or an ambulance? No. You did none of those things. You did nothing at all. You drove to your friend's house, destroyed evidence, and took drugs while my baby, my child lay either dying or dead. You didn't care one bit. You then wrapped her body and kept her in your car like she was nothing. She was something. She was someone special. Not only to me, but to everyone who knew her. And you threw her away like she was rubbish. You disgusting, evil person."

The house at Narara where Danielle Easey was killed in 2019. Her body was later dumped in Cockle Creek.

Dilosa read a letter of apology, convinced the judge and community corrections he was remorseful and will be out on parole within the week.

McHenry, meanwhile, will be behind bars until at least 2035.