Richard Peter Coburn: Man dies in car crash after 2010 killing of girlfriend Justine Jones

The family of a young woman who was killed by her boyfriend 14 years ago say they 'feel empty' and have been given no closure after he was killed in a car crash.

Richard Peter Coburn was driving in South Taranaki, New Zealand when he was struck by another car in the early hours of March 20.

He was left with critical injuries and died five days later at the age of 40.

Coburn had spent five-and-a-half years in jail before he was deported back to New Zealand in 2015.

In August 2013 he was sentenced to more than ten-and-a-half-years behind bars over the manslaughter of his partner Justine Jones, 22, in 2010.

Coburn killed Ms Jones after going over to her house to watch the State of Origin in July, 2010.

He wrapped her body in a doona and dumped it in a bin which was then compacted and taken to a tip.

Her body was so badly damaged, a cause of death was unable to be given.

Ms Jones' sister, Jackie Johnson, said Coburn's death had not changed anything for their forever grieving family.

'Everyone's kind of lost, you know, like there's just such a waste of life on both sides. And everyone's been hurt by it,' she told the Courier Mail.

Ms Johnson said the worst part was that Ms Jones' loved ones would never get the answers about the night of her death given Coburn was now gone.

'He refused to speak, he showed no remorse. He just shut his mouth and he got away with it pretty much,' she said. 

'But I don't believe he should have ever been released from prison for what he did to her and this is just the universe kind of balancing things out I believe. Like karma works in mysterious ways.'

Coburn had been violent to Ms Jones earlier on in their relationship.

He once broke a beer bottle before stabbing her in the back.

She initially told her parents she had slipped when they saw the scars before revealing what had really happened.

Ms Jones had met Coburn after moving into a sharehouse with her sister where Coburn already lived in 2009 at  Alexandra Headlands on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

Coburn had already served three years in prison before his sentencing in 2013, before being deported to New Zealand in 2015.