Pearson has confessed to the murder of McShera and received a life sentence from the WA Supreme Court today.
He will have the possibility of parole after completing 19 years of his sentence.
Justice Michael Gething described the crime as a “brutal, senseless, and unprovoked attack.”
He emphasized, “You betrayed her trust and took advantage of her vulnerability.”
Justice Gething further stated, “Ms. McShera was entirely an innocent victim.”
McShera, a specialist in family law who had previously assisted Pearson with legal issues, sustained nine injuries. These included skull fractures, severe cuts to her head and face, a brain bleed, and a traumatic brain injury.
Hotel staff found her body on the bathroom floor the following day with the bloodied bottle beside her.
Pearson was in a bathtub in the same hotel room – number 1227 – in his underwear, holding a broken champagne glass with serious self-inflicted injuries to his wrist.
He later told police the pair had been arguing after McShera told him she was leaving him, and he attacked her while she was putting on makeup and getting ready to go out.
“I lost it and hit her over the head,” he later told investigators during an interview.
“Because she was leaving me.
“I killed the person I love.”
The courtroom, packed with members of the Perth legal fraternity, heard the pair had been staying at the hotel in a bid to reconcile their increasingly volatile relationship, which involved recreational methamphetamine abuse.
After Pearson, an unemployed fly-in-fly-out boilermaker, killed McShera, he covered her with towels and a robe and “chilled out” in the hotel room.
He had intended to ask McShera for her hand in marriage, but had learned she did not love him, Justice Gething said.
McShera was described to the court as kind and generous and passionate about the prevention of violence against women and children.
She and Pearson, a father of one, had used methamphetamine and drunk alcohol before the deadly assault.
Pearson attempted to end his life after hotel staff tried to enter the room, following a call from McShera’s concerned family.
“Your offending involved the most extreme kind of domestic violence,” Justice Gething said.
McShera’s former employer, Murray Chambers, said she was a much-loved colleague and fearless barrister with a very promising future.
