Karen Leek was a woman with a heart of gold, described by relatives as the nicest person in their family.
She didn't have children of her own but treated her siblings' children, and their children, as if they were hers.
So family were sickened by the fact that someone so kind and generous could have had her life ended in such a heinous way, and by someone she knew and cared about.
Her great niece, Jessie Moore, has pleaded guilty to Ms Leek's murder in May last year.
Moore, now 26, had been living with Ms Leek on a property at Devon Meadows, southeast of Melbourne, where Ms Leek trained and cared for greyhounds.
Throughout Moore's childhood she had spent time with Ms Leek for respite from her own chaotic family, staying with her while her mother received mental health treatment.
Their relationship soured and there were increasing disputes over Moore's ongoing drug use and her failure to pull her weight around the home.
Before her death Ms Leek told one of her brothers that she wanted Moore gone.
David Leek said he thought his sister felt used by Moore, both financially and in terms of caring for Moore's child.
Moore was pregnant with her second child and Ms Leek told her she couldn't help her to care for a newborn.
On May 25 last year as Ms Leek settled in for her nightly ritual of watching Home and Away the pair argued.
Moore bludgeoned Ms Leek with a hammer. An autopsy found she was struck at least a dozen times. Moore also covered Ms Leek's face with a plastic bag.
She took the hammer and some of Ms Leek's personal belongings with her and left the property just after 7pm. That evening she went to KFC and stopped to buy cigarettes.
In the morning she bought a slushie from a 7-Eleven and returned to Ms Leek's property where she made out she had discovered her great aunt's body.
The bloodstained hammer, a pair of gloves, Ms Leek's phone and two sets of car keys were later found in the bedroom of a home where Moore had stayed. Her fingerprints were found on the bag and some of its contents.
The court heard Moore had spun a web of lies to keep some stability in her life, and so she could continue living with Ms Leek.
Her lawyer Sharon Lacey said the offence committed by Moore was "heinous" and had caused an enormous amount of distress and pain to the people in her life.
"It is an offence that is difficult to fathom in many ways because Karen Leek had provided so much to Jessie Moore," she said.
The pre-sentence hearing before Justice Paul Coghlan in the Supreme Court is continuing.
