Phillip Island mum knew her days were numbered when she was hanged in a garage by her abusive ex

A mother brutally murdered by her abusive husband who tried to make it look like a suicide knew she was powerless to stop him. 

Adrian James Basham, now aged 46, was jailed for life on Monday and ordered to serve at least three decades behind bars for the savage murder of his former partner, mother-of-three Samantha Fraser. 

Daily Mail Australia can now reveal the full torment Ms Fraser suffered leading up to her murder inside her fortified Phillip Island home on July 23, 2018.

Samantha Fraser had been expected to pick-up her children from school, but never arrived

Basham was captured on CCTV lurking around the home where his ex-wife was living

At the time of Samantha’s death she had been under the supposed protection of an intervention order against her ex-husband. 

She was also due to give evidence against Basham, who had faced multiple charges of raping her both in 2014 and 2016. 

Samantha was certain Basham had been tracking her phone. 

Her devastated mother Janine Fraser told the Supreme Court of Victoria her daughter had no faith in the justice system protecting her from Basham. 

‘We supported Samantha in her decision to leave her abusive marriage as he had also threatened to do Samantha harm and intimidated her with threats of various scenarios of the way harm might come to her,’ Ms Fraser told Justice Lesley Taylor before she handed down her sentence. 

‘From the time she ended the marriage we lived in fear of what he might do, either by his own hand or by the hand of another.’ 

Ms Fraser claimed her daughter feared not only for the safety of herself, but of her entire family. 

‘Sam feared he would either kill her himself and perhaps the children and us, or he would have someone else do it,’ she said.

‘I remember her reading in the paper about a domestic homicide and looking up at me and saying, “That will be me, mum. Make sure you don’t let him get away with it”.’

Ms Fraser described her agony at not being able to help her daughter before her death inside their own family home.

Adrian Basham murdered Samantha Fraser (pictured) inside her Phillip Island home in 2018

A GoFundMe established to help Samantha’s parents raise her three children has raised just a little over $36,000 of a $50,000 target.

Samantha was so worried about Basham in the months before her death she had moved in with her parents at Seagrove Way on Phillip Island – south east of Melbourne. 

It was there, in her parents’ garage, that she died while they were away on a trip to the United States.  

Police had alleged Basham had snuck into the garage as Samantha returned home after meeting with friends. 

She had been due to pick-up her kids from school that afternoon but never turned up. 

‘To see my daughter so vulnerable and afraid and not be able to do anything to keep her safe is one of the hardest things I have had to endure,’ Ms Fraser told the court. 

Although a jury found Basham guilty in April of Samantha’s murder, the hulking brute helped prolong pre-sentence hearings for almost a year with his erratic behaviour caged in the court prison dock. 

Samantha’s family clapped as Basham was led out after his sentencing this week. 

His own 13-year old daughter Jemima had been among a swag of family members to stare him down in person last year. 

‘I’m here to tell you I’m a fighter,’ she told Basham. ‘I have struggled with anxiety and even suicidal thoughts, but I am here today to show people that I am a fighter and we will get justice for my mum.’

Samantha Fraser refused to speak ill of Basham to his children 

Adrian Basham will spend life behind bars mostly in solitary confinement 

Such was Samantha’s love for her children, she had refused to speak an ill word of their father in front of them despite his menacing abuse. 

‘She refused to monsterise the man who had hurt her so terribly and would not sanction us doing so either.’ Ms Fraser said. 

‘I remember looking at her in awe and asking “How can you do that darling?” and she said “They need their good memories mum and I will not teach them to hate”.’

Basham, who believed to the very last second he would be acquitted of his ex-wife’s murder, had tried to dupe the jury with a pathetic story none of them swallowed. 

His barrister, Ashley Halphen, told the jury they ought have a reasonable doubt in the case against him, because Samantha may have killed herself. 

The court heard Samantha weighed just 57kgs and was considerably smaller in height than Basham. 

Her handbag and phone had later been found still in her car after being attacked the moment she drove into her parents’ garage.  

Samantha had fought desperately for her life, with deep bruising to her hands and wrists consistent with being restrained.

She had suffered rotational force and velocity applied to her head when she was assaulted, and her head was spun round.

When done, prosecutors claimed Basham attempted to clean up the bloody crime scene after hanging her from the garage door.  

Adrian Basham had wanted to stop his ex-wife testifying against him in court over rape allegations 

Adrian Basham lurks outside Samantha Fraser’s home before murdering her 

Mr Halphen tried to convince the jury Basham had attended  Samantha’s home with ‘a nonviolent purpose’. 

‘I’d submit that he didn’t go there with an intention to be violent,’ he told the judge. 

Mr Halphen claimed it was possible Basham had gone there to try and talk Samantha out of pursuing her rape allegations, which were dumped by prosecutors after his murder conviction. 

‘It’s well open for your honour to find that there was an explosion of pent up anger over the years and one thing led to another, in nanoseconds,’ he said.

‘We submit that in those nanoseconds, that is when the assault commenced, there  was – it was irreversible. There was no going back and that is when the murderous intent formulated.’

It was a scenario dismissed by Justice Taylor.   

‘If she was aware that he was anywhere near her, the first thing she would’ve done was to pick up one of those phones. A woman driving a car alone puts her handbag on the passenger seat and phone in the console,’ Justice Taylor responded. 

‘You turn the car off, you pick those two things up. She didn’t have time.’

A GoFundMe established to help Samantha’s parents raise her three children has raised just a little over $36,000 of a $50,000 target. 

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