‘I just bolted to our bedroom door’: Husband recalls home invasion that killed his wife

On the evening of Boxing Day in 2022, Lee Lovell stayed up later than his wife, watching a movie with his youngest daughter.

After he made his way to bed in his North Lakes home, he fell asleep quickly, before waking to the sound of their two dogs barking.

“The dogs continued for a little bit, and that’s when I turned over and looked at Emma. She was laying on her back in bed looking at her phone,” Mr Lovell recalled in court on Monday.

Lee Lovell, husband of victim Emma Lovell, talks to media after the sentencing of the first teenage defendant.Credit: AAP

“She just said the front door was open. I just bolted to our bedroom door.”

Knowing his wife, Emma, had checked the outside security cameras, Mr Lovell opened the door to see two intruders in the hallway of his home.

This was the evidence Mr Lovell gave of the final moments of his wife’s life as part of a Supreme Court trial for the second teenager charged over the home invasion.

The scene in North Lakes after the violence.Credit: Jocelyn Garcia

The main offender, who stabbed Ms Lovell in the heart, killing her, was sentenced to 14 years’ jail earlier this year.

His co-accused, who was 17 at the time and who cannot be named for legal reasons, began his judge-only trial before Justice Michael Copley on Monday.

He pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and burglary. Throughout the morning, he showed little emotion, staring ahead.

Wearing a white button-down shirt, the boy sat quietly in the dock, in front of his supporters and the Lovell family.

As the first witness in the trial, Mr Lovell, at times emotional, told the Brisbane court he struggled with the boys as he yelled at them to get out of his home.

The struggle spilled out onto the front lawn.

“I tried to get [one teenager] to the ground and then, I’m not sure if I stumbled, or I was pushed, I ended up on the ground, and that’s when I was kicked in the head two or three times, in the body as well.

“And then after that stopped, I remember getting to my knees and seeing one of the people run to my truck, and had fallen over and was getting up.

“By the time I looked back at Emma I believe she was sitting on the ground with her knees up, you know, with her head towards her knees.”

Emma Lovell was killed and her husband was injured during the confrontation at their North Lakes home.

Mr Lovell said at that time, he did not see his wife’s injury.

“I didn’t notice it ...” Mr Lovell said, his voice breaking.

In his opening address, Crown Prosecutor David Nardone said the two teenagers had a common intention to steal that night, when they left their home on the same street as the Lovells.

He said the co-offender who stabbed Ms Lovell had a knife earlier in the night.

It was conceded, however, that there was no direct evidence the accused on trial this week knew about the knife before the invasion of the Lovell house.

But Nardone said when the boys arrived at the home, CCTV footage showed the co-offender moving his hand while holding the knife, appearing “to place it directly in front of the accused’s face”.

The prosecutor said security cameras from neighbours across the road recorded audio of the incident.

“That will be played during the course of the trial and includes statements being made by one of the two accused, of ‘I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you’,” he said.

Barrister Laura Reece, representing the accused teenager, said Justice Copley would also be able to hear the words “stop, stop, stop, stop”, on the audio, at the point her client was running over to the first teenager, who was at that time kicking Mr Lovell on the ground.

“In my submission, footage is useful but sometimes difficult to draw a firm conclusion as to what is seen in it,” Reece said.

She said the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that her client had knowledge of the knife.

The court was played footage of the incident, which showed the pair struggling with the teenagers, before Ms Lovell fell to her knees on the lawn.

The trial continues.

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