Analyn ‘Logee’ Osias murder: Killer James William Pualic pleads guilty to murdering Bendigo mum

The daughter of a woman slain by an ex-partner has told a court she refuses to speak the “disgustingly worthless” man’s name.

James William Pualic, 45, appeared in the Bendigo Supreme Court on Monday after pleading guilty to the murder of Analyn “Logee” Osias, 46, in October last year.

Ms Osias was found critically injured in her blood-soaked Bendigo home on October 29 and later died in hospital.

Pualic was arrested hours later in the nearby Barkers Creek Reservoir with self-inflicted injuries.

Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC told the court Ms Osias and Pualic had previously been in a domestic relationship but it ended prior to her murder.

Clinical psychiatrist professor Andrew Carroll said the pair had a “profoundly dysfunctional” relationship with clear evidence of Pualic exerting coercive control over Ms Osias.

He characterised the killing as a “failed murder suicide of the intimate partner distress-type”.

“But for the intervention of Victoria Police I consider it very likely that he would be dead,” he said.

Pualic broke into her home on the Sunday night and left a blood trail “consistent” with returning home following the killing, Ms Rogers said.

She said he was found shivering by police shortly before 5am and appeared “incoherent and substance affected”.

Video played to the court showed Pualic being located by police in pitch-darkness.

Ms Osias was found with significant abrasions, cuts and bruises, with the cause of death determined to be a stab wound that cut her carotid artery.

Professor Carroll told the court Pualic had reported no memory of the murder after consuming considerable quantities of alcohol earlier that day.

He said Pualic claimed to have drunk half a litre of vodka, fallen asleep and woken up suicidal and taken an overdose amount of Olanzapine – an antipsychotic medication.

“He’s completely loaded up on alcohol and Olanzapine,” he said.

“Had he not used alcohol that day, I consider it unlikely this awful event would have happened.”

Professor Carroll said Pualic had since been diagnosed with complex PTSD and schizo-type disorder.

In a prison phone call, Pualic later told an associate he’d had “big mental problems that week”, Ms Rogers said.

“I was mentally suffering badly and you know I started getting all these delusions and s--t and then on that night I bought a bottle of vodka just to try, you know, nullify my thoughts and stuff,” she quoted him as saying.

“There were no messages back towards me or anything so once I had that vodka I went and blacked out.”

In a victim impact statement to the court, Ms Osias’ eldest daughter said her family now suffered because of their mother’s brutal death at the hands of someone they “trusted”.

“I chose not to speak of the offender because I don’t believe any thought or any amount of energy should be spent on someone so disgustingly worthless,” she said.

The court was told Ms Osias had herself grown up in an orphanage in the Philippines after she was rejected by her family about eight years old.

She moved to Australia as a young woman and grew from a shy, vulnerable young lady to a confident, capable and self-assured woman, her ex-sister-in-law Helen Turley said.

The court was told Ms Osias’ family suffered the loss of her second husband in May 2020 in a tragic accident.

Ms Osias’ daughter said her mum wasn’t a “perfect person” but made the most out of everything life threw at her.

“A lot of the time when I was a kid she was a single mother living in a foreign country,” she said.

“She is the strongest and most beautiful person I know. I will be eternally grateful for having even an ounce of her in my life and for everything she sacrificed for me.”

The hearing, before Justice Rita Incerti, will continue on Tuesday.

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