Michael Cardamone became the first killer without a prior murder conviction to be handed a life sentence without the chance of release, when Justice Lex Lasry jailed him in August 2017.

The murder of 49-year-old Ms Chetcuti-Verbunt was "extraordinarily vicious, callous and thoroughly unprovoked", the judge said at the time.

Her sister and mother were in court again yesterday as Cardamone applied for a chance at freedom, which even if granted, is not likely before the now-52-year-old is an old man.

"The details are just so grim and it never gets any easier," Leny Verbunt said of hearing again about her sister's final hours.

Ms Chetcuti-Verbunt was her mother Clary's firstborn child after a series of miscarriages and arrived prematurely.

"She was very welcomed into the world and in a lot of ways she came fighting into the world and in a lot of ways she fought her way out as well," Ms Verbunt said.

The mother of two was attacked by Cardamone at her Whorouly home in January 2016.

She was sedated with a horse tranquilliser, injected with battery acid and bashed while held prisoner for hours by Cardamone before being burnt alive in remote bushland and then run over with a car. He pleaded guilty to murder.

His lawyer Dermot Dann QC said on Thursday Justice Lasry had failed to give adequate weight to the guilty plea when he denied Cardamone the possibility of parole.

He questioned where the incentive to plead guilty was without a visible sentencing discount.

Mr Dann also challenged Justice Lasry's decision not to mention life without parole as a possibility in a pre-sentence hearing, meaning Cardamone's then-lawyer didn't have the chance to object.

Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC said Cardamone's significant criminal history warranted the sentence. He was on parole at the time, having previously been jailed for raping a 15-year-old girl.

Appeal Court president Chris Maxwell said the sentencing remarks included a "powerful catalogue of descriptions" of Cardamone's acts and his prior history.

He said it wasn't often a judgment included phrases like "thoroughly unprovoked", "horrifyingly callous" and a description of seeking to cause "terror and suffering" in a victim.

"And that's just in the first paragraph," Justice Maxwell noted. "It's not difficult to see why this judge has done what he'd never done before."

The judges will give their decision on allowing the appeal at a later date.

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The appeal comes months after Ms Chetcuti's former husband Tony Chetcuti lodged a legal claim for damages from the state, claiming Cardamone wasn't properly supervised on parole.