By Jordan Baker
Eastern suburbs real estate player Matthew Ramsay flew high in the world of Sydney property. His deals were worth tens, sometimes hundreds of millions. He had powerful, rich friends and a glamorous lifestyle. Behind the scenes, his alcoholism was spinning out of control.
When the dominoes fell, they fell fast. His marriage collapsed. At work, he was a mess. He developed an alcoholic twitch. Sometimes, the court heard, he could barely speak. By 2019 a friend claims to have seen him kneeling at the foot of his bed in tears, praying God would take his addictions away.
Prayers didn’t work. Nor did rehab. Then he did something unthinkable.
Matthew Brian Ramsay has been charged with wounding with intent to murder.
In a drug-induced delirium, Ramsay took a knife and drove to the Dover Heights home of one of his most stalwart supporters – a man he’d known since childhood, who he’d stood beside at the altar, who’d found him his first real estate job, who’d invited him to be godfather to his children, who’d paid for his rehab.
He stabbed the man’s wife in the heart.
He can’t explain why he did it.
That woman – whose name cannot be published for legal reasons – survived, thanks to her courage to fight back and the intervention of builders nearby. The blade had gone very close to her aorta. On Friday, sick to her stomach, she listened to a District Court judge sentence Ramsay to a minimum of three and a half years in jail.
The sentence was fair, she told this masthead in her first interview since the attack, but she wished it had been longer. “I just really wanted a few more years up my sleeve before he was out of jail,” she said. “This offender has taken away my sense of safety.”
The woman has a thick, ugly scar directly above her heart, where Ramsay’s blade pierced her on August 8, 2022. It still hurts when children rest their heads on her chest. The invisible scars hurt more, though; the flashbacks, the trauma, the sleeplessness, the panic, the anger, which affects every part of her life.
There’s also the impact on her loved ones. Her husband’s guilt at being his friend. Her children’s pain and confusion. “My only mistake,” she said, “was to open the door when he rang my doorbell.” She had not seen the man in more than two years.
“The first stab missed my heart and aorta by millimetres and I don’t know where I got the strength – all I could think about was my children being without their mother – but I was able to push him away and run outside screaming.” She described the builders who came to her rescue as heroic.
But Ramsay’s statement he did not remember the attack left her with no closure. “In the wake of my attack, in the wake of the Bondi Junction attacks, knife crime needs to be placed firmly on the national agenda as a serious national crisis,” the woman said.
She is also concerned Ramsay was able to leave rehab with a significant amount of drugs he had been prescribed, which the court found contributed to his state of delirium when he committed the attack. “The community pays the price,” she said. “The price is safety.”
The court was told Ramsay had a difficult childhood, with alcoholism and violence in his home. He began drinking too much when he was 17. There was binge-drinking during his 20s, which became more regular in his 30s.
Even so, his star rose in the property world. Twenty years ago he was selling offices. By 2018, he was leading a team that presided over $1 billion worth of deals a year, including the $305 million sale of 88 Christie Street in St Leonards and the $180 million sale of Channel 7’s Pyrmont building.
Yet 2018 was also the year his marriage collapsed and his addictions spiralled. Letters tendered to court describe his descent, saying his drinking escalated, he struggled to hold on to his high-paying job, he tried and failed rehab multiple times, and was unable to string a sentence together.
He’d been in trouble for shoplifting and “he was a shell of the person he once was”, said one. “I thought he was close to dying,” said another. Doctors told the court Ramsay’s chronic alcohol abuse had left him with alcohol-related brain damage and cognitive impairment.
On the day of the stabbing, he left rehab with drugs he’d been prescribed. He went to his own home to get a knife, then drove to his friend’s home, pretended to be friendly to gain entry, then produced a knife and said “sorry”, and stabbed her in the area of her heart.
She pleaded with him, ran outside, tripped, and fell into bushes, where he stood over her. She managed to get the knife. He covered her mouth so she couldn’t yell. Construction workers heard the noise and came to her aid. He was arrested soon after, on Campbell Parade in Bondi.
Judge David Barrow found Ramsay was in a drug-induced delirium, had left rehab with prescribed sedatives and psychoactive medication, and was possibly also suffering alcohol withdrawal (a breath test was negative). Ramsay’s moral culpability was reduced because he had been prescribed the drugs.
He will be eligible for release in October 2026. The woman says her sentence will begin when he is released. “That day irreversibly changed my life and handed me a life sentence of fear, anxiety and trauma,” she said.
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