"Family should be the people who make you feel safe."

She said Ms Paepaeri's son returned home about midnight - the same time Homann broke the window and fled - and believed the car was being stolen.

He ran to the bedroom to tell Homann.

"When he turned on the light he found himself standing in his mother's blood," Justice McCallum said.

"The unborn child of 21 weeks' gestation did not survive."

Before convicting him of the savage crime, a jury heard Homann had taken ice the morning of the attack and had been in the grip of a drug-induced psychosis.

He had previously tried to cut off his ear with a box cutter after taking ice.

Justice McCallum said Homann presented himself to Mount Druitt police station in a crazed state, with blood on his hands and wearing only shorts, which kept falling down.

While there, police gave him a cup of water.

"He tried to eat the edge of the cup," she said, adding that he kept sliding off a chair and the detectives had to hold him up.

He later told psychiatrists he believed Ms Paepaeri was trying to kill him, that he had blacked out, and the next thing he saw was his partner lying in the hallway.

He said he'd heard steps downstairs and jumped out the window to get help.

Justice McCallum said Homann had actually walked around the crime scene and tried to wash his hands of her blood.

The court heard Homann suffered from paranoid episodes brought on by his extensive use of ice.

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"He once ripped out the walls of his home he owned because he thought the house was bugged," Justice McCallum said.

Witnesses said Homann had been acting strangely, staring at them on the night of the murder.

Members of Ms Paepaeri's family, including her stepfather Godwin D'Ugo, sat in the court wearing purple shirts in tribute to the slain woman and denouncing domestic violence.

Someone in the court yelled "I hope you rot" as Homann was led back into custody.

Outside court Mr D'Ugo thanked the family's supporters, including White Ribbon, an organisation that fights domestic violence.

He said of Homann: "The devil would've had more compassion."

Mr D'Ugo welcomed the hefty sentence, but said it wouldn't bring about the return of Ms Paepaeri.

"It's not going to change things, its not going to bring her back," he said.

"It's going to be a long, hard road, but what can you do."

He said Ms Paepaeri, whose laugh was "iconic", had raised four sons and was "finally going to have a baby girl".

"She bought dresses, all the equipment, prams," he said.