A has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison after fraudulently trying to claim his dead girlfriend's superannuation and life insurance benefits.

The AFP then charged the man in July 2020, after claims that he had accessed the super account in the hours following her death from medical complications in 2019.

The woman's relatives reported concerns about her financial affairs after the man tried to obtain a copy of the death certificate. 

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The man, 32, was sentenced in Perth District Court yesterday after being found guilty of logging into the woman's superannuation account on her phone and changing the beneficiary nomination to his own details. 

He tried to access almost $400,000 in super and life insurance benefits.

He was sentenced to three years and 10 months' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of one year and 11 months.

AFP Detective Inspector Andrea Coleman said investigators worked hard to protect the woman's savings.

"In this case, we have helped to protect this young woman's nest-egg and ensure the money is provided to the beneficiary who she chose," Coleman said.

"The work our people do is important.

"I would like to thank the dedicated men and women of the AFP who worked tirelessly, not just on this case, but every day."

William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed on Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.

His son, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press.

“The family is devastated,” he said. “He was a great pilot and we will miss him terribly.”

William Anders, a retired major general, has said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program along with making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked.

The photograph, the first colour image of Earth from space, is one of the most important photos in modern history for the way it changed how humans viewed the planet. The photo is credited with sparking the global environmental movement for showing how delicate and isolated Earth appeared from space.

NASA Administrator and former Sen. Bill Nelson said Anders embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration.

“He travelled to the threshold of the Moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves,” Nelson wrote on the social platform X.

Anders snapped the photo during the crew’s fourth orbit of the moon, frantically switching from black-and-white to colour film.

“Oh my God, look at that picture over there!” Anders said. “There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!”

The Apollo 8 mission in December 1968 was the first human spaceflight to leave low-Earth orbit and travel to the moon and back. It was NASA’s boldest and perhaps most dangerous voyage yet and one that set the stage for the Apollo moon landing seven months later.

“Bill Anders forever changed our perspective of our planet and ourselves with his famous Earthrise photo on Apollo 8," Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who is also a retired NASA astronaut, wrote on X. "He inspired me and generations of astronauts and explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends.”

A report came in around 11:40 a.m. that an older-model plane crashed into the water and sank near the north end of Jones Island, San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said. Greg Anders confirmed to KING-TV that his father’s body was recovered Friday afternoon.

Only the pilot was on board the Beech A45 airplane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Association.

The National Transportation Safety Board and FAA are investigating the crash.

William Anders said in an 1997 NASA oral history interview that he didn’t think the Apollo 8 mission was risk-free but there were important national, patriotic and exploration reasons for going ahead. He estimated there was about a one in three chance that the crew wouldn’t make it back and the same chance the mission would be a success and the same chance that the mission wouldn’t start to begin with. He said he suspected Christopher Columbus sailed with worse odds.

He recounted how Earth looked fragile and seemingly physically insignificant, yet was home.

“We’d been going backwards and upside down, didn’t really see the Earth or the Sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earthrise,” he said. “That certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing. To see this very delicate, colorful orb which to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape really contrasted.”

Anders said in retrospect he wished he had taken more photos but mission Commander Frank Borman was concerned about whether everyone was rested and forced Anders and Command Module Pilot James A. Lovell, Jr. to sleep, “which probably made sense.”

He served as backup crew for Apollo 11 and for Gemini XI in 1966, but the Apollo 8 mission was the only time he flew to space.

Anders was born on October 17, 1933, in Hong Kong. At the time, his father was a Navy lieutenant aboard the USS Panay, which was a U.S. gunboat in China's Yangtze River.

Anders and his wife, Valerie, founded the Heritage Flight Museum in Washington state in 1996. It is now based at a regional airport in Burlington, and features 15 aircrafts, several antique military vehicles, a library and many artifacts donated by veterans, according to the museum’s website. Two of his sons helped him run it.

The couple moved to Orcas Island, in the San Juan archipelago, in 1993, and kept a second home in their hometown of San Diego, according to a biography on the museum's website. They had six children and 13 grandchildren. Their current Washington home was in Anacortes.

Anders graduated from the Naval Academy in 1955 and served as a fighter pilot in the Air Force.

He later served on the Atomic Energy Commission, as the U.S. chairman of the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. technology exchange program for nuclear fission and fusion power, and as ambassador to Norway. He later worked for General Electric and General Dynamics, according to his NASA biography.

He was convicted of killing Ben Smart and Olivia Hope on New Year’s Eve in 1997.

Those who donated to the family of Victorian woman Hannah McGuire are being refunded by GoFundMe after their money was allegedly stolen.

McGuire, 23, was allegedly murdered by her ex-partner and her body was found in April in a burnt-out car in Scarsdale, about 25 kilometres south of Ballarat.

An online fundraiser was quickly established on behalf of the Clunes Cricket Club, where McGuire's family is involved, which raised almost $65,000 following her death.

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Police confirmed 26-year-old Lachlan Morganti has been charged for allegedly stealing $60,000 of the funds raised.

GoFundMe confirmed they were proactively refunding all donors in line with their guarantee.

"We take protecting Australian generosity very seriously," GoFundMe said in a statement.

"We will always make sure that donations are used as intended.

"Our team is in contact with the McGuire family, and will continue to liaise with them, and authorities, as required."

Police alleged the Winter Valley man stole the money between April 25 and May 8. 

Morganti has been bailed to appear before the Ballarat Magistrates' Court on June 20.

Lachlan Young, 21, has been charged with murder over McGuire's death.

Mayor Paula Southgate said it had been “the most challenging and complex” LTP.

Celine Dion is sharing details about how difficult her life has become as she lives with stiff person syndrome.

In a clip from an interview with NBC's Hoda Kotb, the acclaimed singer revealed that it's "like somebody is strangling you" when she has attempted to sing.

"It's like someone's pushing your larynx this way," Dion told the "Today" co-host as the singer pushed on her throat to demonstrate what she meant.

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The spasms can attack different parts of her body, including her abdomen, spine and ribs, she said.

"I have broken ribs at one point because sometimes when it's very severe, it can break some ribs as well," the Grammy-winner shared.

The disorder is "a rare, progressive syndrome that affects the nervous system, specifically the brain and spinal cord," according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Dion last year announced she had cancelled her "Courage World Tour," with a source close to her telling CNN at the time that she "will likely never tour again."

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Doctors have located something in Dion's blood that helps explain why she contracted the rare neurological disorder, according to the NBC report, and she is under care to try to resume more activities.

That is also the focus of an upcoming documentary, "I Am: Celine Dion," set to stream on Prime Video on June 25.

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A South Carolina judge on Friday threw out murder charges filed this year against a father and a step-mother, saying there was no new evidence they killed their five-year-old child in 1989.

Circuit Judge Roger Young ruled the original detective in the case changed his interpretations of the evidence and with more than 20 witnesses either dead or unable to testify in the 35-year-old case, the couple couldn't put up a fair defence and question witnesses who claimed they made incriminating statements.

The judge barred prosecutors from ever charging the couple again.

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The boy's father said on Friday that by wrongly focusing on them at the start they could never properly grieve and the real killer likely will never be known.

"I feel like they did a very poor case from the beginning," said Victor Turner, father of five-year-old Justin Turner.

"I'm glad that it's over with but now we really won't ever know too much. All I wanted was to get the person who did this."

Justin Turner was found dead in a cabinet in a camper behind his Berkeley County home in March 1989. He had been strangled.

Investigators immediately thought the killing scene had been staged and they caught his father, Victor Turner, and step-mother, Megan Turner, in lies, Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis said at a January news conference where he announced murder charges against both of them in the cold case.

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Megan Turner was also charged with murder in 1990, but a grand jury refused to indict her.

Megan Turner said the suspicion around her since her step-son's death has been crushing. She has been afraid to speak to anyone, fearing her words would be twisted by police determined to unjustly convict her.

"It's been over 30 years," Turner said, crying.

"We couldn't say anything. The investigation when it first started everything went so wrong … if we said anything, they tried to turn it against us."

Sheriffs determined to solve the case had tunnel vision depending on assumptions and poorly gathered evidence, defence attorney Shaun Kent said at a Friday news conference.

"One sheriff after another would whisper a rumor in the next one's mind. And then the next one would say it and the next one," Kent said.

"This case is not based on any evidence. It is based on rumors and innuendos."

After the couple were arrested, the Virginia School of Law's Innocence Project sent Kent evidence that serial killer Richard Evonitz was stationed on a US Navy ship in nearby Charleston at the time of the killing.

Evidence and the method used in the boy's case matched three other kidnappings and killings of children in Virginia that Evonitz was linked to, Kent said.

Evonitz killed himself as police closed in on him in 2002. His body was cremated, likely making it impossible to try to match his DNA with evidence in the South Carolina case and further hampering the Turners ability to defend themselves.

The detective who investigated the case in 1989 was rehired by the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office in 2021 to review cold cases.

He testified investigators were able to determine tiny fibers from a ligature found at the home shortly after the boy's disappearance were found to match those found on the boy's shirt.

Kent said that using a microscope shouldn't count as new evidence.

When they arrested the couple this year, deputies changed their theory on how the boy was killed, saying he was strangled with a dog collar attached to a leash instead of just the leash.

The new theory only came after deputies bought a collar and tested it with a mannequin, defense lawyers said.

The judge pointed out the collar and dog would have been available in 1989 but not now. The collar has not been found since, even with detectives digging up the dog's remains, the defence said.

Justin Turner's body was found two days after he was reported missing as investigators in arresting the couple cited strange statements and behaviour like Victor Turner entering the camper as a TV camera filmed him and seconds later said he found the body among the many cabinets and drawers in the camper.

The couple asked officers what might happen if a family member harmed the boy and others said Megan Turner suggested a big fight with her step-son before he died that she won.

Having more than 20 witnesses used to build the case in 1989 unable to testify today isn't fair to the couple, the judge ruled.

"This is a circumstantial evidence which depends on part on supposedly incriminating statements made to third persons. Unavailability of those witnesses for cross examination would be highly prejudicial to the defence," Young wrote.

Prosecutors said they had no grounds to dispute Young's ruling and lamented the mistakes made by investigators 35 years ago in collecting and preserving evidence.

"It is rare that prosecutors can say there is nothing more that could have done to conduct a more thorough investigation, but in this case, we know that Sheriff Lewis and his team of investigators did all they could do to find truth and justice," Solicitor Scarlett Wilson wrote in a statement.

Other family members of Justin Turner issued an unsigned statement through prosecutors saying the justice system failed.

"Based off the overwhelming evidence, the ones responsible for Justin's death had the chance to face justice here, but instead chose to stay silent and face the final justice handed out by God for eternity!" the statement read.

Firefighters were called to the property about 7.45pm.

A woman has died and a young child has been rushed to hospital after a single-car crash in Upper Caboolture this afternoon.

Officers were called to the scene after a white car crashed into a tree near Caboolture River Road, north of Brisbane, about 2.30pm.

The woman, who was driving, was declared dead at the scene.

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The child was taken to Queensland Children's Hospital in a critical condition.

Forensic crash investigators are investigating.

Police urged anyone who witnessed the incident or has dashcam footage to come forward.