Last Wednesday, friends and relatives of Naomi Bernaldo, 19, clapped, sobbed, and embraced after a Supreme Court jury found Darren John Ellis had shot and stabbed his defacto before dumping her naked body in a Creswick

lake.

The crowded court erupted with emotion as supporters of Ellis, including his parents, cried tears of despair while the 37-year-old shook his head.

The jury took just over a day to find Ellis, of Creswick, had murdered Ms Bernaldo in 2006, shortly after she discovered she was carrying his child.

Outside the crowded court, Ms Bernaldo's mother, Anne-Marie Burke, wept and said: "I'll never have her back though".

Mrs Burke had told the court her daughter was considering an abortion because she did not believe Ellis, a father-of-two, wanted more children.

Ms Bernaldo's uncle Peter Rhodes said outside court, the family were "over the moon" with the verdict.

"She was a beautiful girl, she had a loving family, what she went through no-one deserves to go through that," he said.

"As far as I'm concerned Darren Ellis can rot in jail, the whole family thinks that."

Ms Bernaldo went missing in September 2006. Canoeists found her body floating in St George's Lake, near Creswick outside Ballarat, on November 1, 2006.

She had been shot in the head at close range, stabbed in the chest and her body encased in chicken wire and weighted with rocks.

Justice Paul Coghlan will sentence Ellis on a date to be fixed.

- story courtesy of Fairfax Media