A woman who convinced her lover to assassinate her boyfriend, before repeating the act years later, has failed to convince Victoria's highest court that she should be allowed to launch an appeal.
Robyn Lindholm, 49, appeared in the Court of Appeal, where she was challenging her murder conviction over the killing of George Templeton at the hands of her paramour, Wayne Amey, who she also later murdered.
Lindholm was jailed for 28 years over the death of Mr Templeton, some of which was to be served concurrently with a 25-year sentence for the killing of Mr Amey.
But on Wednesday Justices Phillip Priest, Emilios Kyrou and Terry Forrest struck down Lindholm's legal maneuver, meaning she will have to serve the sentences she originally received.
She will be 71 before she can apply for parole.
Lawyers for Lindholm argued her conviction for Mr Templeton's murder should be challenged because the jury came to an unreasonable verdict and there was a substantial miscarriage of justice.
The couple had been together for about seven years and were living together in Reservoir when Lindholm made her deadly move in May, 2005.
At the time, she was in a secret relationship with Mr Amey.
On the night in question, Mr Templeton was marking the anniversary of his father's death and was drinking Metaxa, a Greek brandy, that he had asked Lindholm to buy for him.
She and a friend, Matilda Burke, made dinner that night and relaxed on the couch before they made an excuse to leave.
When then returned, Mr Templeton had disappeared with his ute. His body has never been found.
Victim's steak dinner may have been laced with sleeping pills
During murder trial, prosecutors told a jury that, when the women left, Mr Amey and another man went to the Reservoir house and either murdered Mr Templeton and took his body away, or abducted and killed him at another location.
Court documents also revealed Lindholm may have put sleeping pills in Mr Templeton's pepper steak dinner to help the killers.
Lawyers for Lindholm argued that she should be allowed to appeal because several witnesses that prosecutors relied on were unreliable, including Ms Burke, who helped prepare dinner for the dead man.
In their written judgement, the three Court of Appeal Justices said Ms Burke was initially a "critical" witness for Lindholm who supported her story about coming home to find Mr Templeton missing.
"It was only some time after her evidence was challenged by the prosecutor that she retracted all earlier versions and provided her highly incriminating account," the judges said.
"When they arrived back … and found Mr Templeton missing, on this account [Lindholm] said to Burke, 'Wayne Amey had paid somebody to help him get rid of George'.
"It was only upon hearing her deceased mother's voice on a telephone intercept played in court, and after interacting with [Lindholm] in a corridor of the court building, that she had a change of heart."
Accused moved in with lover's killer
Justices Priest, Kyrou and Terry said the jury was warned about the reliability of witnesses such as Ms Burke, who had changed her story.
"We consider that the circumstances that led to her retracting the old account and substituting a new one were not unreasonable or far-fetched, and certainly, not so highly improbable as to defy belief," they said.
The Court of Appeal also rejected an argument from Lindholm that she suffered a substantial miscarriage of justice because evidence that was considered inadmissible was played to the jury during due to human error.
"We are positively satisfied that the irregularity identified and conceded by the respondent did not make a difference to the outcome of the trial," they said.
This is Lindholm's second failed legal bid after she appealed against her sentence for murdering Mr Amey in 2016.
After Mr Templeton died in 2005, Lindholm moved in with Mr Amey in Hawthorn.
The couple had bought a house at Bittern, near Hastings, but things turned sour in 2010 and they became embroiled in a bitter property dispute.
Previously, the Court of Appeal was told that Lindholm was "actively seeking" someone to kill Mr Amey for two years.
Her attempts became successful in 2013 when she started a relationship with Torsten Trabert.
In December 2013, on the night before the couple were due in court over the property dispute, Trabert and another man lay in wait for Mr Amey in his apartment block's car park.
They were able to enter because Lindholm had given them a swipe card.
That hearing was told that, as Mr Amey walked towards the elevator, he was bashed with a baseball bat and put into the boot of the car where he was later heard begging for his life.
The men then murdered him and hid his body in the bush.
Lindholm pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Amey, which led police to renew their investigation into Mr Templeton's disappearance.
They ultimately charged her with his murder 11 years later.
