Chloe Hoson was just five years old when she was suffocated by her neighbour Tom Kosowicz, but New South Wales Supreme Court has found Kosowicz was not guilty of murder due to mental illness.
Kosowicz admitted to strangling Chloe back in 2003 while she was visiting his house to play with his cat, but claimed he was in a schizophrenic haze after she knocked over his bowl of cannabis.
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Chloe did not die immediately so Kosowicz covered her head with plastic bags, interfered with her body and then dumped her into a creek.
"She spilt my pot on the ground and then I lost the plot," Kosowicz said.
"Then I blacked out and next thing I was strangling her in my bedroom."
Chloe's father Michael said at the time: "Change the system for starters regardless of whether you're sane, insane, whatever, you do the crime you do the time."
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Kosowicz' parents once referred to their son as a 'time bomb' and said the crime was not his fault. Mrs Kosowicz had set up a system so that she could call special numbers that were saved into her phone if she ever needed help.
In a submission to a Senate inquiry into mental health, Kosowicz's parents condemned the incident as 'one of the worst cases of incompetence by the mental health unit at Liverpool'.
The submission read: "Our son was entrapped and railroaded by the present system, he had no hope of ever being treated for his illness.
"He has been fined for the symptoms of his illness and turned into a criminal just to get assessed at hospital, and all this happened several times approx 16, then they tried in vain to convict him of murder as a common criminal."
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The submission continued: "Our son was guilty of being sick, he was only the bullet NSW Health fired blindly in to a crowd.
"There is no doubt had he been sent to an asylum or institution none of this horror would have happened."
"If I can't get to the phone in time, I knock him out myself," Mrs Kosowicz also explained to 7 News.
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Speaking to ABC, she added: "He got a small job for a while, but having a job ... it was too stressful for him. Plus, he also stopped his medication by this time.
"So I got a call from his caseworker saying that Tim hadn't received his injections for three months."
He apparently threatened suicide.
"But he was psychotic and he had the voices in his head," Mrs Kosowicz added.
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"And just one thing led to another and he was unhappy, he was not medicated and so the story goes. This is just what happens when they're un-medicated and they're not treated."
She said she didn't blame her son for Chloe's death, and instead believes that it was the mental health system that failed.
Featured Image Credit: 7 News