Body found near Hume Highway, Goulburn identified as 30-year-old Samah Baker of Sydney

It followed a more than four-year search for the body of the 30-year-old Parramatta woman whom the NSW Supreme Court found in May, 2023 had been murdered on January 4, 2019.

Justice Robertson Wright sentenced 37-year-old James Hachem to 24 years' prison over her murder, with a non-parole period of 18 years, backdated to his 2019 arrest.

He will be eligible for parole in March, 2037.

Hachem has never revealed the whereabouts of Ms Baker's body.

Police searched bushland at Yarra, near Goulburn, in March 2019 and at South Nowra the following May for her body.

On July 28, 2023 a woman collecting cans on the Hume Highway bypass at Goulburn alerted police when she found human remains. Forensics have examined these over the past month.

In May, the NSW Supreme Court was told Hachem and Ms Baker were in a previous "violent and tumultuous" relationship.

She had ended the relationship on "multiple occasions" before Ms Baker found a new partner in December, 2018.

The court heard Hachem had waited outside her apartment in his car and spied on her while she was on a date, becoming enraged when he witnessed the pair kissing in the early hours of January 4.

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He had then lured her out of her apartment before killing her.

The court was told Hachem had then purchased various items from Bunnings, including a double sheet, gloves, cleaning products and a digging trowel, before driving to isolated areas in rural NSW.

"The offending involves fatal violence towards a female partner, arising out of his jealousy and anger because of her being with another man," Justice Wright said.

Ms Baker's family said the discovery of her remains felt like "losing her all over again", in a statement police issued on the family's behalf.

"On Friday, January 4, 2019, Samah was taken away from us in the cruellest way. In the years that followed, our grief has been compounded by the fact that we have not been able to have a funeral or lay her to rest," it read.

"We never got to say goodbye to her or tell her we loved her for the last time.

"The news of her remains being discovered four and a half years later isn't a neat resolution, but it does offer a small measure of what we've been longing for all this time.

"Each development in the case feels like a reopening of our barely healed wounds, reminding us of the harsh reality of our loss."

The family also asked for privacy as they dealt with their grief.