A chilling letter written by a Sydney woman just months before her death has helped send her former husband to jail for soliciting her murder.
After her brother’s sudden death in 1990, Rita Caleo was so scared for her own safety that she wrote a letter to her solicitor in a sealed envelope titled: ‘To be opened only if my death is unnatural.’
Three months later, she was found dead in the family’s house, her body riddled with 23 stab wounds in what was alleged to be a burglary gone wrong.
Appearing before the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday, her ex-husband Mark Caleo, now 55, was sentenced to 12 years prison for soliciting her murder, 28 years after her death.
Rita Caleo (pictured) was murdered in 1990, three months after she wrote a letter addressed to her solicitor saying: ‘To be opened only if my death is unnatural’
The letter incriminates her husband, Mark Caleo, and another man of participating in the murder of her and her brother
He was convicted in April of soliciting the murder of his wife in August 1990.
Former Kings Cross bouncer Alani Afu, 51, was found guilty of carrying out the murder.
He was paid at least $10,000 and allowed to keep the jewellery from the home, taken to try and make the crime look like a robbery.
The court heard former employee Anthony Stambolis testify that Mr Caleo told him to offer $10,000 to find someone to kill his wife and to make it look like a robbery gone wrong.
Mark Caleo (pictured) was sentenced to 12 years prison with a nine year non-parole period
It was her letter, ultimately, that directed police attention to Mr Caleo.
‘In the event that my death is unnatural, direct the investigation to my husband Mark Caleo and Rick Damelian of Rick Damelian Used Cars,’ It read.
‘My brother’s death is also their doing.’
Rick Damelian was also named in her letter but is not suspected of any involvement in either her or her brother’s deaths.
He is not facing any charges related to the matter and has denied being involved.
Her brother, Dr Michael Chye, 36, was fatally shot in the head in his Woollahra home in October 1989.
Nobody has ever been charged for his murder.
Mrs Caleo’s sister, Angelina Chye (pictured) told the court she couldn’t attend her funeral, saying ‘I sat crying in my room, grieving’
Earlier this month, Angelina Chye told a judge of her grief over her sister’s murder.
She told the court how she had not been able to attend her funeral because it was deemed unsafe.
‘I sat crying in my room, grieving.’
In handing down Mr Caleo’s sentence, Justice Robert Allan Hulme said the defendant was the mastermind of ‘a cold blooded plan to kill his wife’, which he ordered after she cut him out of her will.
Mr Caleo was sentence to 12 years with a non-parole period of nine years for soliciting Mrs Caleo’s murder.
Alani Afu was sentenced to 20 years with a non-parole period of 15 years for murdering her.