A 20-year-old aged care worker is facing a possible life jail term after pleading guilty to murdering a resident of an aged care facility in Western Australia's Great Southern region.
Jacob Anthony Hoysted has been in custody since just before Christmas last year when he was arrested and charged with strangling Monica Stockdale, 70, who lived at the Baptistcare Bethel facility in Albany.
She died in late November but Hoysted was not charged until Christmas Eve, after what police described as an extensive investigation following the results of a post-mortem examination on Ms Stockdale's body.
Hoysted, who was 19 at the time, had worked as a carer at the facility, which is located in the Albany suburb of Yakamia, for about a year.
At the time he was charged, Inspector Quentin Flatman said the case resonated with everybody in the community.
"Clearly, people go into these facilities seeking the best care … being such vulnerable members of our community, and we are greatly saddened by the death of this woman."
"We are providing support to the next of kin, who are also residents of Albany, but I have no doubt that this will very much shake the core of this community and those people who have elderly loved ones in aged care facilities," he said.
"Our elderly community shouldn't expect to be faced with treatment of this nature, or their lives to be cut short in this sort of fashion."
Today Hoysted appeared in the Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court in Perth via video link from Casuarina Prison, as he officially entered the guilty plea to the murder charge against him.
No details were given of his crime or his background, and he was again remanded in custody until he faces a sentencing hearing in the WA Supreme Court in October.
'A little bit of justice'
Speaking outside court, Ms Stockdale's son Matthew Stockdale and niece Leeanne Smith said the guilty plea would help them process her death.
"It's good. It's a start. [We're] heading towards a little bit of justice, but nothing's going to make it better," Mr Stockdale said.
"There isn't a fitting end to it all, but it'll certainly help."
The pair said they were initially told Ms Stockdale died in her sleep with dementia while recovering from a hip operation.
They said receiving a call from the homicide squad had been "horrible".
"We never saw it coming," Mr Stockdale said.
Ms Smith said Ms Stockdale was like a second mother to her.
"Even in her last months she was a very happy person," she said.
"Very calm, peaceful. So I don't think there was any reason for him to have done what he did."
