Self-confessed child killer Mortimer Saunders has been sentenced to two life sentences for the rape and premeditated murder of Courtney Pieters.

Saunders was last month convicted of the rape and murder of three-year-old Courtney Pieters after giving the Elsies River toddler ant poison in May 2017.

Pieters was initially reported missing and her body was found nine days later in a shallow grave in Epping.