Cory Breton, 28, and Iuliana Triscaru, 31, were killed at Kingston in Logan, south of Brisbane, on January 24, 2016.
The pair had been beaten, stabbed and choked before they were stuffed into a two-metre-long toolbox that was later dumped in a lagoon.
Stou Daniels, Davy Malu Junior Taiao and Trent Michael Thrupp were on Thursday handed life sentences with 30-year non-parole periods after they were found guilty of their murder for a second time following a retrial.
Mr Breton's partner, Miranda Parkinson, broke down in Queensland Supreme Court detailing how her life had been affected by an initial mistrial, a fresh trial, an appeal and a retrial.
"For nine-and-a-half years, we have not been able to say goodbye properly," she said.
"We have not been able to mourn because every time we have to relive that tale.
"It has been painful for everyone who loves Cory, but most of all for our daughter."
Ms Parkinson said the girl was aged three when her father died.
"She was constantly asking 'where is dad, when is he coming home?'
"I had to tell her, with tears running down my face, my voice trembling, that he would never be coming home.
"I had to tell her the truth 'daddy is dead, he has gone to the sky now, bad people had killed him'. We both cried together and I hugged her as tight as I could."
Mr Breton's daughter provided a written statement to the court about how she had always noticed how other children spoke about their dads.
"The word 'dad' is foreign to me … I don't need grief or sorrow. I need my dad," she said.
The trio faced a retrial in Brisbane after the Court of Appeal set aside murder convictions in July 2024.
Their convictions for torture were not overturned.
Justice Glenn Martin heard a victim statement from Ms Triscaru's mother and family members that said they had been "wounded" by the countless days in court that preceded the convictions.
"Her senseless killing has left an unfillable void and inflicted wounds that continue to bleed," the statement said.
"The unbearable reality is that we are forced to endure this legal process once again, every detail, every moment of fear and despair … inflicting fresh wounds on our already shattered souls."
Mr Breton and Ms Triscaru had been lured to a Kingston unit before being attacked by a group of men over a drug-dealing dispute.
The terrified pair made so much noise as the container was being moved, music from an awaiting ute was turned up in a bid to conceal it.
Thrupp either threw the toolbox, weighed down by concrete, into nearby Scrubby Creek or was present when it happened, crown prosecutor Nathan Crane told the jury.
Daniels and Taiao were also liable for murder by forcing the victims into the toolbox hours before their deaths, he said.
Police divers found the bodies locked in the toolbox submerged in the lagoon two weeks later.
Mr Breton's sister Tamara Kazim-Breton on Thursday told the defendants about the person they "threw away so easily like they were nothing".
"Your actions didn't just take Cory, you tore us apart," she said.
Justice Martin told the trio they had engaged in "appalling conduct".
"It is difficult to imagine the immense terror that each felt in the hours leading up to their cruel deaths," he said.
"The excoriating effects of what each of you has done has been memorably captured in the victim impact statements."
Justice Martin accepted Mr Crane's submission that the trio should serve 30 years instead of the mandatory 20-year minimum.
They have already spent over nine years in custody, which was counted as time served.
4°C