After a three-course Italian dinner, champagne, red wine and board games with friends, Mandy Melzer-Head told her partner she wanted to end their relationship.
They had enjoyed a good night but Trefor Kingdon, 65, was in the middle of a divorce, his relationship with his children had deteriorated and she felt there was a lack of commitment from him.
Ms Melzer-Head was, like all women in her situation, entitled to end the relationship without retribution, Victorian Supreme Court Justice Lex Lasry said on Tuesday.
She should have been able to do so without Kingdon's violent reaction.
He stabbed her 11 times with a kitchen knife in the home they shared in Bendoc, in Victoria's northeast.
"I think I've killed Mandy," Kingdon said as he staggered into the room where his friend was staying.
The friend called triple zero and performed CPR until help arrived, but Ms Melzer-Head died on the kitchen floor.
She and Kingdon had been childhood sweethearts who reunited decades later after a school reunion.
Justice Lasry lamented this was yet another example of violence against a woman, ending with a man killing a woman he professed to love when she tried to leave him.
"It carries the implication of 'look what you made me do'," he said.
Ms Melzer-Head's daughter Alexandra described perpetual darkness and despair since the murder but hopes she can some day remember her mother's endless energy, creativity and compassion with fondness rather than pain.
"I hope I can find the strength because mum, her life, her laughter and her light deserve to be celebrated," she said.
Georgie Head said not seeing her mum make new memories with her own children left her with "a sadness that hurts my body to the core".
Kingdon, a former mortgage broker, was jailed on Tuesday for 23 years.
He had no history of domestic violence offending.
"I know I've caused so much pain to so many people ... I know I will be punished for what I did and that's just and right," he said in a statement.
Justice Lasry accepted Kingdon was remorseful but found his moral culpability was high.
Kingdon must serve at least 16 years and three months before he will become eligible for parole.
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