KEY POINTS:
Whetu Te Hiko had a history of violence towards women and children. The 23-year-old had 13 convictions before he murdered Lois Dear.
Eight were for assaulting women and children in 10 months, from April 2004 to February 2005.
The father of two young sons, Te Hiko has already spent time behind bars for assaulting the mother of one of those boys.
Justice Lester Chisholm said the "past record of violence against women" was one of several aggravating features.
The judge accepted that Te Hiko had had an "unhappy past" and that he was not of "sophisticated" intelligence. His brother, Hamuera, the second eldest of the six Te Hiko siblings, is also in jail for killing a woman - his wife - in 2001.
"I doubt that you have very much insight into this killing even at this stage," the judge said.
Te Hiko, who was employed as a forestry worker at the time of Ms Dear's murder, spent most of the sentencing with his head bowed.
He asked his lawyer, Harry Edward, to read out a letter on his behalf.
It said: "My remorse for what I've done is complete in the thousands."
He also acknowledged he failed to understand how his actions had resulted in the death of "an innocent teacher".
Te Hiko's sister Rangi spoke to the Weekend Herald in November, three weeks after his first appearance in the High Court at Rotorua.
She denied she and her siblings had a violent upbringing, despite claims by a cousin that their father used to chain Whetu to a tree as punishment and send Rangi to school with cigarette burns on her arms.
"That's not true. He [the father] never went to the extreme. I never, ever went anywhere with bruises on me ... It's not like he whacked us because he hated us."
She said her brother went to primary school in Atiamuri, then Forest View Intermediate in Tokoroa and Taupo-nui-a-Tia College.
He showed some talent for music and kapa haka and liked rugby league. He quit school after getting a part-time job at Tokoroa New World and began working in forestry in May last year.
Ms Te Hiko said she would continue to support her brother, but admitted her anger at him.
At his first court appearance several hundred angry Tokoroa locals gathered outside the court and yelled for the killer to be given "the rope".
Ms Te Hiko still did not know that the man, handcuffed and clad head to toe in a white boilersuit, was her brother until she saw him in the dock. "You stupid c***," she yelled through sobs.
She and other family members had discussed Ms Dear's violent death and condemned the person responsible.
"We were like, 'Whoa, how could somebody do this to an old lady?' We cursed this person."
They thought an appropriate punishment would be to tie the killer to the town clock and let the public bash him.
Ms Te Hiko said that when she found out the killer was her younger brother she was "real angry".
