Billy Winter was chased down and then savagely beaten to death near the Birallee Tavern in Wodonga on July 27, 2008.

Next Friday — one day short of the fifth anniversary of his horrible death — Whorouly man Ronald Dale Croxford will walk free from jail.

It will be only another 12 months before his other killer, Ricky Doubleday, is also free.

The thought horrifies Mrs Winter, who remains aghast at their short sentences.

She does not believe either should be eligible for parole so soon after her husband’s death.

Her first worry is the release of Croxford, now 41, found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 7½ years with a minimum of five.

“As far as I’m concerned he’s still a dangerous man,” Mrs Winter said.

“I wouldn’t want to be around that person. I think the rest of the public out there should know he’s coming out and in 12 months’ time, the other one’s coming out.”

Doubleday, now 32, of Wod­onga, was jailed by Justice Paul Coghlan for nine years for defensive homicide.

During the trial the court heard Croxford became violent after Mr Winter produced a knife outside the tavern and then put it away.

Mr Winter, a Scottish migrant, retreated up Leisure Centre Drive but Croxford and Doubleday followed him after arming themselves with garden stakes.

Mr Winter, who armed himself with a knife in one hand and a belt in the other, was hit to the head and body by the men.

Mrs Winter accepts her husband “wasn’t a saint” and “had a couple of issues”.

Details of threats he made to his wife — including threatening her with a knife and breaking her arm with a spanner — were revealed during the trial.

But Mrs Winter said that was something she had chosen to wear — it wasn’t something Billy brought out in public.

“My point is those two men were known bullies in the district,” she said.

“Who can say they won’t do it again, because it’s in them.”

Mrs Winter said she had been mulling over whether to speak out for the past few months.

“I just thought ‘now’s my time’,” she said.

“Before this I had not spoken to anybody or gone anywhere near it because it’s just been too hard.”

She takes an interest whenever similar crimes and the sentencing that follows hit the news.

“It’s so bad that there are laws that are so lax,” she said.

Mrs Winter chose to leave Wodonga in 2010 because of the killing.

However, she still has family in Wodonga.

“My concern is what happens when they’re out socially and they run into this man or his family,” she said.

Croxford’s parole conditions will preclude him from that sort of contact, but Mrs Winter fears that does not mean it won’t happen.

“You don’t ever really accept what happens, because I don’t accept it at all,” she said.

“But you just have to learn to put it in a place, in a space, and try to go forward with your life.

“That’s as good as you’ll ever get because there is no excuse at all for anybody killing another person.

“And particularly the way they did it — they hunted him down and they beat him to death.

“They didn’t just smack him in the head once, they continually kept beating him.”