Edwina Lewis found guilty of murdering niece she accused of sleeping with her man

‘I couldn’t stop thinking about it, my own child, like niece, slept with him,’ she told the court. ‘She made me angry. I couldn’t help myself and I couldn’t stop myself.’

The scene of the stabbing on Mitchell Street the following day. Picture: Sierra Haigh

A woman who murdered her niece on a public Darwin street after accusing her of sleeping with her partner now faces a mandatory life sentence after her “provocation” defence failed.

It took jurors fewer than 90 minutes to find Edwina Josephine Lewis guilty of murder on Thursday after prosecutors earlier rejected a manslaughter plea in the Supreme Court.

The court heard Lewis stabbed her victim at least 11 times in a frenzied attack outside the Monsoons nightclub on Mitchell Street shortly after 8pm on December 20, 2022.

Defence barrister Beth Wild argued the 31-year-old was provoked after the other woman — known as NW for cultural reasons — called her a “slu-” and “an old lady” who “should give up”.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it, my own child, like niece, slept with him,” Lewis said in her evidence.

“She made me angry.

“I couldn’t help myself and I couldn’t stop myself.”

But Crown prosecutor Marty Aust said the brutal knife attack was “not provocation” but “premeditated revenge” despite no evidence of any affair.

“Premeditated, calculated — not a loss of self-control — a very controlled, very measured, planned killing,” he said.

“All she wanted to do was stab NW over and over and over and over to get her revenge.

“She stabbed a defenceless, unsuspecting, unarmed woman over and over and over and over and she knew — her evidence is she knew that when she stabbed her over and over and over she would endanger her life.

“She wanted to do that and she did do that.”

Lewis will return to court for sentencing on Monday.

Woman who stabbed niece to death ‘provoked by partner’s affair’: Court

A woman who stabbed her niece to death in a jealous rage after learning she had shacked up with her partner while she was in prison was “provoked”, a court has heard.

Edwina Josephine Lewis, 31, pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court to murdering the younger woman outside Monsoons nightclub after prosecutors rejected a guilty plea to manslaughter.

In her closing address on Thursday, defence barrister Beth Wild told jurors Lewis had been released from a stint in jail in December 2022 to find her niece, referred to as NW for cultural reasons, was now living with her man.

In arguing her client was provoked, Ms Wild said “we’re not saying that NW deserved it” or “casting the blame on her”.

“But we also must not be blinkered as to the actions of NW, because the law requires us to examine it, we can’t gloss over it,” she said.

Ms Wild said the two women were “fighting over” the man and “jalousing and swearing at each other” when NW “tells Edwina that she’s an old lady and should give up” and “calls Edwina a slut”.

Ms Wild said it was “an extreme situation” that’s “probably never happened to any of you” but invited the jury “to consider a scenario that might make more sense to you”.

“Imagine you’ve been away, you find out that your husband, wife, long-term partner is having an affair with a younger person that you know, you trust, it might be a niece or nephew, it might be something else, it might be the nanny,” she said.

Blood stains the footpath outside Monsoons after the stabbing. Picture: Sierra Haigh

“And then think about the circumstances in which you find out about this, in public.

“Think about it in a context that might make sense to you, in a social setting, with family around.

“They use offensive language and there’s a physical fight in which you’re punched in the head, so it’s not just words, there’s a fight, it’s in front of your family.

“The question is this: Could this — not would this — could this induce an ordinary person, that’s got the minimum level of self-control, to lose control?”

But in his closing address to the jury, Crown prosecutor Marty Aust said while Lewis “might have been a bit offended and disrespected”, “she wasn’t provoked”, with CCTV capturing “a murder on film”.

“The only logical, commonsense outcome is that Edwina Lewis killed the deceased because she was angry,” he said.

“She hadn’t lost self control at some sort of provocative action by NW and the sad thing, in fact, is that there’s no evidence that NW ever had any relationship with (the man).

“She was ruminating on that in her time for a month when she was in prison, stressing over the fact that (he) might be with someone else — it had nothing to do with something that was done by NW.”

The jury was expected to retire to consider its verdict late on Thursday or Friday morning.

Originally published as Edwina Lewis found guilty of murdering niece she accused of sleeping with her man