Aiia Maasarwe
Aiia Maasarwe was a 21-year-old Arab-Israeli student who had come to Melbourne for a one-year exchange program at La Trobe University while continuing her business studies. Family and friends remembered her as bright, multilingual, optimistic and adventurous. Her death prompted vigils in Melbourne and mourning in her hometown.
That public reaction is part of the case's context, but the legal record is unusually clear. Herrmann was arrested within days, later pleaded guilty to both murder and rape, and was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Victoria. A subsequent Crown appeal argued that the sentence was too lenient; the Court of Appeal dismissed that challenge.
The attack in Bundoora
Shortly after midnight on January 16, 2019, Maasarwe was travelling home after an evening in central Melbourne. She left a Route 86 tram in Bundoora and was speaking by phone with her sister when she was attacked. Her body was found nearby later that morning.
Police launched an intensive investigation. Codey Herrmann, then 20, was arrested two days after the killing and charged with murder and rape. This page omits unnecessary physical details of the attack and the treatment of Maasarwe's body after death.
Guilty pleas
On June 7, 2019, Herrmann pleaded guilty to murder and rape. Those pleas eliminated any legal ambiguity over whether he had merely been accused: he admitted the offenses and the case proceeded to sentencing in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
At the plea and sentencing hearings, the court considered his personal history, mental-health evidence, substance use and severe childhood disadvantage. Those matters were relevant to punishment; they did not excuse the offenses or change the guilty pleas.
Sentence
On October 29, 2019, Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth sentenced Herrmann to a total effective term of 36 years' imprisonment and fixed a non-parole period of 30 years. The Supreme Court's own case page confirms that sentence for the murder and rape of Aiia Maasarwe.
The court took into account several sentencing factors, including Herrmann's age, guilty pleas, mental condition and history of profound childhood deprivation. The seriousness of the violence and the need for punishment and community protection remained central to the result.
The Crown appeal
Victorian prosecutors later appealed, arguing that the 36-year sentence was manifestly inadequate. In 2021, a five-judge bench of the Victorian Court of Appeal dismissed the Crown appeal. Later Supreme Court material discussing the case confirms both the original 36-year sentence with a 30-year non-parole period and the dismissal of the challenge.
That appellate outcome matters editorially. The final status is not simply “sentenced in 2019”; the sentence survived a prosecution attempt to increase it.
Timeline
January 16, 2019: Aiia Maasarwe is attacked after leaving a tram in Bundoora; her body is found nearby.
January 18–19, 2019: police arrest and charge Codey Herrmann with murder and rape.
June 7, 2019: Herrmann pleads guilty to both offenses.
October 29, 2019: the Supreme Court of Victoria sentences him to 36 years' imprisonment with a 30-year non-parole period.
November 2019: the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions files an appeal arguing that the sentence is manifestly inadequate.
2021: the Victorian Court of Appeal dismisses the Crown appeal, leaving the sentence in place.
Current classification
The Murder of Aiia Maasarwe is classified Solved / Adjudicated. Codey Herrmann pleaded guilty to murder and rape, received a 36-year prison term with a 30-year non-parole period, and the later Crown challenge to that sentence was dismissed.