British businessman Gordon Wood was sentenced today to seventeen years in prison for murdering his girlfriend Carolyn Byrne. In 1995 he allegedly threw Byrne from Gap Bluff near Sydney, Australia, after a bitter argument. Because Gap Bluff is a notorious suicide spot, and there was a history of suicide in Byrne’s family, Wood apparently hoped authorities would believe she had taken her own life. But during the trial, Queen’s Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi enlisted the aid of a physicist to prove that Byrne could not have jumped to the position where her body was found, and could only have been thrown. A prosecution witness said Byrne’s body was wedged in a crevasse “like a spear”.

A motive for the killing is unclear, but the jury heard evidence that millionaire stockbroker Rene Rivken—for whom Wood was a chauffeur at the time—was concerned Byrne had learned details of his business dealings. Rivken allegedly feared Wood and Byrne would split, prompting Byrne to publicly divulge these details as revenge. The prosecution suggested Wood’s concerns about the possibility were enough to compel him to commit murder—and a jury agreed. Wood had accumulated enough riches since 1995 to afford a playboy lifestyle and a chalet in the French Alps. Now he’s housed in the Parklea Correctional Centre north of Sydney.