Queensland’s knife crime crisis: Inside the shocking statistics
From shopping centres to suburban streets, Queensland's most brutal knife attacks have left a trail of tragedy across the state, with youth crime driving a dramatic surge.
Knife crimes have plagued Queensland this year with an increase of new laws designed to stamp out bladed woundings.
At the same time, these efforts have revealed the alarming number of those who carry knives in public places.
Over the past decade, the number of knife and bladed crimes in Queensland has increased dramatically.
Queensland Police Service figures from 2019 revealed knife and bladed crimes had surged by more than 40 per cent between 2014 and 2019.
From 2019 to the 2022-23 financial year, knife and blade-related offences, including stabbings, cutting and woundings, rose by a further 18 per cent in Queensland, and their underage use by 22 per cent.
Jack’s Law, introduced in 2023 to allow for wide-scale weapon detection through police wanding operations, revealed that between March 2023 and May 2024, more than 570 knives were seized under the new legislation.
In the first six months of operation alone, QPS reported 350 weapons — including machetes, axes and daggers — were confiscated in public places like shopping centres, trains and malls.
Despite police’s renewed vigour in stamping out bladed crime, these offences continue to shock Queensland with their brutality.
Below are some of Queensland’s most serious cutting, slashing or wounding incidents that courts have dealt with over the past two years.
Wide Bay-Burnett
Alex Robert Smart
A Father’s Day altercation turned fatal when this man, 31 at the time, fatally stabbed a father of five in the heart and leg with a flick knife on the Bruce Highway.
Alex Robert Smart fronted Brisbane Supreme Court on appeal in November 2024 after chasing down and stabbing Tylor “TJ” Bell, 31, on September 1, 2019 in Gympie.
The court heard Smart had followed Mr Bell and his father Gregory to a Bruce Highway intersection following a confrontation at a nearby shopping centre.
It was alleged Mr Smart ran towards Mr Bell’s driver-side door after he had pulled up at a traffic light, and then stabbed him twice with “no hesitation” – including once directly in the heart.
Mr Bell died a week later in hospital.
Smart’s defence lawyers unsuccessfully pleaded the stabbing was in self-defence, but the jury ultimately found him guilty of murder.
Smart has spent more than six years in prison, and must serve 20 years before he is eligible for parole.
Jaylan Walter Jackson
This teenager stabbed a stranger outside a Hervey Bay pub, tearing his insides, and punched another, later claiming he had no memory of his actions “because he was so drunk”.
Prior to the May 26, 2024 incident, a court heard Jaylan Walter Jackson, 19 at the time of his sentencing, had been downing Jack Daniels and beer.
As heard in Hervey Bay District Court on February 19, 2025, Jackson’s two victims, aged 36 and 20, had never previously met him, and were walking up the Esplanade when Jackson “antagonised them”, indicating he wanted to fight and then punched one man in the head.
The man had pushed the teen to the ground before Jackson used an “unknown sharp instrument” to stab the man in the stomach, causing a “very serious injury”.
The two men ran into the Torquay Hotel to find help and it was later revealed the stab wound was three centimetres long and two centimetres deep, and had penetrated the man’s stomach and colon.
Jackson was tracked down about a month after, and had been in custody for almost eight months before his court date where he received a five-year head sentence, with a parole eligibility date set for October 21 this year.
Haiden James Dunne
A Hervey Bay man pleaded guilty to stabbing his housemate who he thought had stolen his cannabis.
On August 28, 2025, Hervey Bay District Court heard Haiden James Dunne, 27 at the time, was living at his parents’ house, and his victim, who was known to Dunne, was living in the garage.
The court heard Dunne burst into the garage on January 13, 2025 where the victim — who went to the same school as Dunne — was still sleeping, getting in his face, accusing him of stealing his cannabis, and lifting his arm up as if to punch him.
The two then started punching each other before Dunne went to the kitchen, and despite his parents’ effort to stop him, grabbed a carving knife and a steak knife and returned to the garage, the court heard.
In the garage, the court heard his father tried to stop him again, but then the victim fell to the ground and Dunne sat on him, thrusting a knife into his torso, back, chest, and right arm.
The victim suffered a laceration to the right side of his chest, which caused a hemopneumothorax, a condition where air and blood enter the chest cavity, and had two lacerations on his arm.
Without successful hospital treatment, “the consequences for him would have been far more serious,” Judge Carl Heaton KC said in his remarks.
Defence barrister Peter O’Connor said Dunne was autistic, and the attack was a response to receiving an eye injury from the initial altercation.
He pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful wounding on August 28 this year.
Judge Heaton sentenced Dunne to two years’ jail with immediate release on parole.
Edward Robert Bonner
A cultural heritage officer and talented indigenous artist faced court for a vile attack on his former partner in which he threw a glass at her face at a Hervey Bay hotel.
Edward Robert Bonner, who was 37 years old at the time of his sentencing, pleaded guilty to wounding in a public place while adversely affected by an intoxicating substance, and obstructing police when he appeared before Maryborough District Court on February 5 this year.
The court heard Bonner was out drinking at the Torquay Hotel on September 2, 2024, with his 22-year-old former partner when the incident happened.
She wanted to go home about 1.30am and was outside the hotel waiting for him.
When Bonner did not appear, she went back into the hotel into the pokies area looking for him.
When she found him, she hit Bonner on the head, causing a fight to break out.
During the fight, Bonner threw a drinking glass at the woman, causing a laceration to her nose, the court heard.
The incident was captured on CCTV footage, the court was told.
Photos of the injury were submitted to the court.
The court heard Bonner had a history of offending against his partners, including a previous incident where he was sentenced for assault occasioning bodily harm while armed.
Bonner was sentenced to two years in prison, with a parole release of March 7, 2025.
The 150 days Bonner had spent in presentence custody was declared as time served.
He was also sentenced to 40 hours of community service, and convictions were recorded.
Gympie stabbing by teenager
A teenager slashed a man’s face with a pocketknife and later bragged about it.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty in Maryborough Supreme Court to 59 charges including acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm, supplying dangerous drugs, attempting to pervert justice, dangerous operation of a vehicle, evasion, unlawful possession of a weapon and possessing dangerous drugs.
The court heard he had been aged between 17 and 18 when the offences were committed.
Crown prosecutor Chris Cook said on November 20, 2023, at 3.45am in Gympie, the teen had approached the victim with a pocketknife in his hand and said words to the effect of “teach you for hanging with another bloke’s girlfriend”.
The teen then swung his arm and slashed the man to the left side of his face with the knife.
“His face was cut in a horrific fashion,” Mr Cook said.
The man was bleeding heavily, the court heard, and he looked up the nearest hospital on his phone.
The victim lost a significant amount of blood, Mr Cook said, and was taken to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital where he underwent surgery to repair the facial nerve.
Mr Cook said there was a risk of death as a result of the injury.
There had been contact between the victim and the teen while the man was in hospital, the court heard.
The teen had bragged about what he had done, Mr Cook said.
Mr Cook said there had been bravado and a lack of remorse demonstrated by the teen.
That included the teen remarking “every time he looks in the mirror, he’ll remember me.”
Mr Davis said he would need time to consider the sentence and the matter was adjourned until October 30, 2025.
Luke John Philips
A man was found hiding in bushland on the Fraser Coast after he slashed another man’s forehead using a Stanley knife, Hervey Bay Magistrates Court was told.
Luke John Phillips pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding when he appeared before the court in November 2024.
He was 34 years old at the time.
According to court documents, Phillips was in a Torquay park with other people on March 14, 2024.
He asked others for alcohol, tobacco and money but when it was declined, he insulted a woman who was a friend of the victim.
According to the sentencing remarks of Judge Gary Long, the victim approached Phillips to tell him to stop abusing his friend.
“Concerningly, your response was to stand up and produce a retractable utility knife, or as it is referred to, a Stanley knife, from your pocket and to approach the complainant who was standing nearby,” Judge Long said.
“You continued to hold the knife as a struggle between the two of you ensued and during the course of that, the knife cut the complainant’s forehead causing pain and blood to run down his face.
The victim needed three sutures and a tetanus booster in the wake of the incident, the court heard.
He was sentenced to 18 months in prison with the 214 days he had spent in pre-sentence custody declared as time served.
Phillips was given immediate release on parole.
Sunshine Coast
Sadik Uluhan
A bizarre dispute over a doorbell alarm was the catalyst for a brutal suburban stabbing on a quiet street.
Tensions were brewing in the lead up to Sadik Uluhan’s knifing of his neighbour at Sippy Downs that left the victim with a pierced liver, resulting in multiple blood transfusions.
On July 29, 2024, the Maroochydore District Court heard the victim was becoming irritated after suspecting his 65-year-old neighbour was activating his doorbell alarm by driving his bicycle on the grass.
Crown prosecutor said that day on February 19, 2022, Michael Andronicus said Uluhan activated the doorbell camera again with his bike and decided to wait for the cabinet-maker to return.
Mr Andronicus said Uluhan returned on his push bike with groceries.
The victim became verbally aggressive and stepped within 1.5m of the Sippy Downs man.
The court was told the victim stepped towards Uluhan with a hand raised, which caused the cabinet-maker to retreat to his bicycle.
Uluhan then produced a knife and stabbed the man in the stomach, which prompted the neighbour to deliver a blow to the 65-year-old’s face.
Mr Andronicus said the victim did not know he was stabbed until he saw blood on his shoes and shirt.
The victim then kicked the weapon out of Uluhan’s hand after he realised it was a 10cm kitchen knife.
Uluhan fled into his home and washed his hands and the knife, while emergency services were called for the victim.
The court was told the victim suffered wounds to his abdomen and liver along with a small cut to his thigh and was in hospital for several days.
He was forced to have multiple blood transfusions, a laparotomy and post-operative physiotherapy.
The Sippy Downs man pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to two and a half years’ jail.
This was suspended for three years after the five days the 65-year-old spent in custody.
He was also ordered to pay $1000 restitution.
Townsville
Tyrese Austin Coby Loogatha
A man who once broke a baseball bat over his mother’s head subjected his partner to a night of torture which left her and another bleeding out in the street.
Soldiers Hill man Tyrese Austin Coby Loogatha, 23, appeared in Townsville District Court on September 11, 2025 after a boxing day stabbing spree in Mount Isa.
In 2022, Loogatha bought a 23 centimetre knife from a smoke shop, saying it was to “slice up mad people” who gave him “cheek”.
Later that day he was drinking in a group of people when he began arguing with his partner and punched her to the back of the head and the face, before taking her phone.
The woman left shortly after.
That night Loogatha threatened to kill her during a phone call, where she asked him to give her phone back.
Judge Jennifer Rosengren said the 23-year-old arrived where his partner was drinking and violently attacked her, including jumping on her head until she was unconscious.
“When she came to, he stabbed her in the stomach with a knife,” she said.
He then made her get up and walk the Mount Isa streets.
As she stumbled helplessly through the streets she spotted her 41-year-old relative and attempted to hide behind him to get away from Loogatha.
“You and (the relative) ended up getting into a fight and you pulled the knife out of your backpack and you stabbed him in the stomach and the back,” Judge Rosengren said.
The man was able to escape after punching Loogatha and running away.
Loogatha continued to pull his partner through the streets, stabbing her again to the neck and to the leg.
As she begged him to take her to the hospital he continued assaulting her until she blacked out again.
Nearby security guards spotted the assault and restrained Loogatha until police arrived.
Defence barrister Michael Hibble said Loogatha had a severely disadvantaged upbringing that involved extreme violence and alcohol and drug use at a young age.
Judge Rosengren sentenced Loogatha to 10 years’ jail with parole eligibility set after he served 80 per cent of the sentence due to the violent nature of his crime.
His 986 days spent in pre-sentence custody were declared as time served.
Zachary John Hunt
A man who threatened to decapitate corrective service officers’ children was jailed after being found guilty of slitting a man’s throat.
Zachary John Hunt, 30, appeared in Townsville Supreme Court via video link in October this year from Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre where he was sentenced for rioting, grievous bodily harm and attempted murder.
Justice Christopher Johnstone recounted the events of 26 July, 2022 when an argument between Hunt and his victim, Peter Haagensen, turned incredibly violent.
The two men had known each other through Mr Haagensen’s ex-partner.
The altercation began when Mr Haagensen struck Hunt with a steel water bottle and punched him in the face.
Hunt retaliated by using a knife he had brought to stab Mr Haagensen twice in the abdomen.
“One of those knife wounds severed an artery in his ribcage and he immediately experienced difficulty breathing as his chest cavity filled with blood and his lungs collapsed,” he said.
Despite attempting to flee, Mr Haagensen collapsed due to his injuries.
Justice Johnstone said witnesses heard Hunt make a threat to kill him if police show up.
“You had one hand holding his hair, pulling his head up, while Mr Haagensen tried to defend himself from the knife,” he said.
Hunt only released his victim when police arrived and tasered him.
“One of the first things you said after being detained by police was directed to Mr Haagensen and was the words ‘die scum,’” Justice Johnstone said.
The court heard Mr Haagensen would have died if not for the life saving treatment of emergency services.
After being arrested for the attempted murder, crown prosecutor Mr Walklate said Hunt threatened to slit corrective service officers’ throats.
Hunt was sentenced to 14 years jail with his pre-sentence custody of 443 days declared as time already served.
After his sentence, Hunt began reciting words from the Quran.
North Ward shopping centre stabbing
Earlier this year, a remorseless young girl who led a shopper into a false sense of security before stabbing her was told off by a Townsville judge for her behaviour in court.
The girl, who was 13 at the time of sentencing and cannot be identified, appeared at Townsville District Court on May 23, 2025 after approaching unsuspecting people and asking them for the time, before she demanded they give her their cars.
The court heard the girl, 12 at the time, was in a group at North Ward Shopping Village in May last year, where she approached a women sitting in her car, and tried to open the locked doors.
Half an hour later, the girl approached a second woman and repeated the same ruse.
When the woman refused to hand over her car, the girl stabbed her in the right shoulder with a pair of scissors.
The court heard the girl fled when she realised the woman was calling someone, and police later found her hiding under a tree with a group of other youths.
A psychological assessment conducted while the girl was in custody revealed she held a “pro-criminal attitude” and showed no remorse for her actions.
Judge John Coker labelled the girl a “young thug” but urged her to make better decisions to change the direction of her life.
As he attempted to pass down his sentence to the smirking 13-year-old, Judge John Coker repeatedly told her to stand up and maintain her focus.
She pleaded guilty to attempted unlawful entry of a vehicle, attempted armed robbery in company with personal violence and armed robbery in company with personal violence.
She was sentenced to 18 months’ probation and was remanded in custody.
Greater Brisbane and Ipswich
Emmanuel Kenya Maduk and Kelvin James Deng
Emmanuel Kenya Maduk, 19, and Kelvin James Deng, 20, were both 18 when they entered a share-house at Everton Hills where a 26-year-old man was attacked with a knife.
Maduk and Deng arrived outside the home on August 5, 2023 under the influence of alcohol and Xanax to pick up a friend from a party, however entered the house after she couldn’t find her phone, Brisbane District Court heard on March 20 this year.
They were carrying knives from Deng’s mother’s car, and caused a commotion while searching for the phone.
When a man confronted them in the hallway and told them to “get out,” Maduk stabbed him in the shoulder with a kitchen knife, the court heard.
He threatened to “come back and do worse” while being held back by others, the court heard.
Maduk and Deng both pleaded guilty to one count each of wounding and entering dwelling with intent at night to use violence whilst armed in company.
Judge Paul Smith said it was a “stupid mistake” and a “real shame” the two men, who had no criminal history, committed the crime, given their promising futures.
The victim sustained a 15cm wound to the back of his shoulder, which penetrated connective tissue but not muscle, requiring 14 stitches.
Maduk was sentenced to three years’ jail to be suspended after seven months while Deng, who was charged as a party to the wounding and did not inflict any actual violence, was sentenced to two years to be suspended after serving three months.
Judge Smith said the sentences took into account the men’s early plea, young age, remorse, and Deng’s abstinence from illicit drugs or alcohol since offending.
Stabbing of Chris Sanders
Army veteran Chris Sanders was stabbed in the chest by a youth who boasted he was “famous” as he walked out of a Brisbane court.
The teenager, who was 17 at the time and so cannot be identified, stabbed army veteran Chris Sanders just centimetres away from his heart at Alexandra Hills Shopping Centre on December 12, 2023.
On that evening, Mr Sanders and his wife were driving through the centre car park when the teen, who was with friends, struck his car.
“You were in my road. What are you going to do about it, old man?” the teen told Mr Sanders who had asked why he struck his car.
The teenager went to kick the car and Mr Sanders warned him not to, prompting the defendant to goad him again.
Mr Sanders alighted his vehicle and the teenager started shaping up throwing his fists.
He told the youth not to “go down this path trying to fight” while the defendant’s peers egged him on, yelling “get him” and “smash him”.
The teenager called Mr Sanders a “fat c**t” as he and an associate circled and kicked him.
The victim grabbed one of the teen’s legs, as he went to kick him, throwing him onto the ground and then walked off to get security.
The teenager chased after him with a knife attached to knuckle dusters.
He caught up to Mr Sanders who had run and fell over when hearing someone yell “he’s got a knife’’.
The teenager slashed Mr Sanders’ leg then stabbed him in the left upper back area near the armpit before running off.
Mr Sanders was taken to hospital where he was treated for serious injuries.
He was discharged from hospital the following day but had to return for blood drainage around his lung and in his chest.
The teenager, who had a prejudicial upbringing and a prior history of largely drug and property offences, pleaded guilty to common assault, assault occasioning bodily harm while armed and wounding.
Judge Ian Dearden called the offending appalling and sentenced the youth to a year’s detention immediately suspended along with 15 months probation with no convictions recorded.
At that stage the youth had been on remand for 189 days.
As he walked from court the cocky teen claimed “I’m famous”.
The matter was successful appealed on October 14, 2025, where the appeal court imposed 18 months’ detention.
It also found there were exceptional circumstances owing to “significant mitigating factors” that warranted the teenager being released after serving 50 per cent of the detention period.
The appeal court ordered convictions be recorded for the offences of wounding and assault occasioning bodily harm while armed but not the common assault.
Seyram Kwami Djentuh
A bloody fight in the centre of Fortitude Valley ended in the stabbing death of a 24-year-old man and a 20-year-old man charged with murder.
Seyram Kwami Djentuh was found guilty of murder at Brisbane Supreme Court on August 6, 2024, after he plunged a pair of scissors into the neck of Lauie Tagaloa at the Fortitude Valley train station on July 11, 2022.
Despite the conviction and being sentenced to life imprisonment, Djentuh petitioned to the Court of Appeal on October 8 this year, claiming he feared for his life when he stabbed Mr Tagaloa.
Djentuh had agreed to fight Tagaloa’s friend Fernando Siologa that morning at the Brunswick Street Mall, a jury was told throughout his trial earlier this year. Mr Siologa is not charged over the incident.
Djentuh then attended what was supposed to be a fist fight armed with scissors, which he had retrieved from a nearby NightOwl, the jury were told.
He stabbed Mr Tagaloa in the neck and fled after the other man approached him with his hands down by his side.
On appeal, defence barrister Andrew Hoare said Djentuh had “armed himself in a defensive way” after watching Mr Siologa’s group outnumber and overpower his own associates.
Mr Hoare said the stabbing occurred in the context of his client having just watched Mr Tagaloa, who was a much larger man, brutally stomp on his friend’s head.
He claimed Djentuh had been facing a “massed assault” while a bystander filmed and called out for him to be “smashed” and “killed”.
He submitted that the jury’s guilty verdict was “unreasonable” and that they should have acquitted Djentuh or alternatively found him guilty of manslaughter.
An appeal decision will be handed down by the Court of Appeal at a later date.
Stabbing of the Kefu family
Two teenagers, armed with a sickle and knife, received 15 years’ custody time between them after brutally stabbing and slashing four members of the Kefu family, including Wallabies great Toutai Kefu.
On February 22 last year, Mr Toutai’s wife described to a court how she suffers flashbacks of the moment she feared she would lose both her husband and son when they were dripping with blood, slashed by the teens in a terrifying home invasion.
The couple were injured along with two of their children as they wrestled with the teenage pair, who cannot be named due to their ages at the time of the crime.
Mr Finch told the court that one of the teens brandished a long “sickle” knife, while the other had a smaller knife, in the attack which began at 3.10am when Mrs Kefu went downstairs and confronted the two boys who demanded “f***ing shut up we want the keys give us the keys to the car”.
Mr Kefu suffered a “life threatening” injury when he was stabbed in stomach, Mrs Kefu had been left with permanent damage after she was stabbed in the left arm, and son Joshua suffered deep cuts and a dislocated shoulder.
Daughter Madison, who was 18 years old at the time, was also injured in the melee.
The two teenagers were sentenced to eight and seven years in custody, respectively, on June 27, 2024.
Stabbing of Vyleen White
Five teenagers were arrested after a 70-year-old grandmother was stabbed to death at an Ipswich shopping centre car park, and one later emerged as the killer.
Vyleen White was brutally knifed in front of onlookers on February 3, 2025 in an underground car park at Redbank Plains Town Square Shopping Centre, Ipswich.
Carjacking Ms White’s 2009 Hyundai Getz hatchback was the suspected motive for the stabbing carried out by a then-16-year-old boy, with the four other teenagers charged with lesser offences involving the alleged car theft.
It is understood Ms White was taking her granddaughter to the shops.
After she was killed, her car was found around 20 minutes’ drive from the stabbing site.
The stabber, who was 17 at the time of his Brisbane Supreme Court hearing on July 23, pleaded guilty as the beloved grandmother’s family looked on.
“We have all struggled,” Ms White’s daughter Cindy Micallef said the following day.
“My middle sister has attempted to take her own life. There was one instance about ten weeks ago where she nearly successfully did. She was in ICU for six days.”
The 17 year old pleaded guilty to the stabbing on July 23 this year.
Sentencing will occur on November 12. He remains remanded in custody.
Anthony Daniel Rajek
Rajek, who brutally stabbed Steven Cribb, a man who was sleeping rough in Brisbane’s CBD, was found guilty of attempted murder in November 2023.
He was sentenced to 13 years and 6 months’ jail for incident which took place on January 16, 2022.
Police said the attack happened just after 3.30am on Queen Street Mall, where 52-year-old Mr Cribb was transported from in a critical condition.
That afternoon, Rajek was arrested after an investigation by Brisbane City CIB.
Rajek, who was 21 at time, submitted an appeal this year, on the grounds that the jury verdict “should be set aside as it is unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to the evidence”.
His lawyer submitted that the evidence in the Crown case was not capable of excluding the reasonable hypothesis that the appellant had held an intention to do grievous bodily harm, but not to kill.
However the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on March 11, 2025.
“As the appellant well knew, he had struck the complainant in the vulnerable neck area with real force; the knife blade had pierced the skin; and it had gone a considerable distance into the complainant’s neck,” the appeal decision said.
“It was not, of course, necessary that the appellant have killed the complainant in order to have had an intention to kill him.”
Stabbing of David Connelly
While on probation for car theft, a 17-year-old teen fatally stabbed a pedestrian with a “monstrous” 40-centimetre knife in Brisbane’s inner northern suburbs in an unprovoked attack.
The perpetrator, now an adult, appeared at the Brisbane Supreme Court on December 12, 2024, where Justice Michael Copley said that time in custody was the only appropriate sentence for taking the life of 43-year-old David George Connolly.
Connolly was out walking, minding his own business, when the teen followed him and asked Connolly if he had picked up his girlfriend’s lost chain necklace when they were at the intersection of Newmarket Rd and Wilson Rd.
The teen then told him “Don’t f*** with me cuz”.
“I’m satisfied that he did not assault you,” Justice Copley told the teen, who gave evidence at his trial that Connolly punched the side of his head several times before he slashed him with the knife.
“For some reason you stabbed him with a knife not intending to kill him or to do him grievous bodily harm,” Justice Copley said.
“You were engaging with him because you believed he knew something about the whereabouts of the necklace,” Justice Copley said, describing the case as “terribly sad” for the Connolly family.
“Ultimately it was an attack on a man in the middle of the street in the middle of the night, over … an objectively trivial item,” crown prosecutor Michael Gawrych submitted.
The now 19-year-old said he got the knife from a friend a week earlier, and planned to use it to “deter” people who approached him and his girlfriend who were sleeping in car parks.
On September 26 this year, the perpetrator appealed his sentence at Supreme Court, claiming it was both manifestly excessive and that the judge made a mistake.
The appeal court reserved their decision.
Stabbing of Emma Lovell
The 41-year-old mum was stabbed in the heart by a 17 year old during a North Lakes home invasion on Boxing Day 2022.
Emma Lovell had awoken to the sound of her dogs barking around 11.30pm.
Less than half an hour later, police found Ms Lovell’s unresponsive body lying face down in the front lawn of her North Lakes home.
Paramedics quickly commenced CPR. A medical officer arrived 10 minutes later to perform open heart surgery on Mrs Lovell in her own front lawn.
Mrs Lovell regained co-ordinated cardiac contractions upon defibrillation in the ambulance – but by the time she arrived at hospital in the early hours of December 27, her pulse had disappeared.
Mrs Lovell had suffered a four to five-centimetre wound on the left ventricle of her heart.
The teen, who the court heard laughed when he was arrested, pleaded guilty in 2024 to her murder, as well as stabbing husband Lee Lovell in the back, and was sentenced to 14 years’ jail, with a non-parole period of nine years and 292 days with time already served.
At the time of the offence, the maximum sentence for murder by a child was 10 years unless the court deemed it particularly heinous, which they did in the case of Mrs Lovell.
Following a successful appeal this year, the now-adult will be released from jail over a year earlier than originally anticipated.
“You said I’m here for murder. I just want to know, you know, did someone die?” the teen had asked police when he was arrested.
He had initially provided them with an alibi later discredited, saying he had been asleep since 9pm.
Alexander George O’Sachy
A blood-soaked doona and a bloodied bucket formed part of detective’s key evidence investigating the fatal stabbing of Angela Silk.
Ms Silk, who also goes by Angela Godwin, was killed by her “on again, off again” boyfriend Alexander George O’Sachy at his Upper Mount Gravatt home, and sentenced late September 2025.
O’Sachy, 47, stabbed Ms Silk to death on September 6, 2021, with police locating bloodied evidence within moments of establishing a crime scene, then launching an investigation shortly after the killing.
The court heard O’Sachy tried to destroy evidence of his crime, spending about 20 minutes washing bloodied sheets and disposing the weapon used.
O’Sachy was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment for stabbing Ms Silk to death under a manslaughter charge.
He remains behind bars.
Gold Coast
Brian Earl Johnston
On March 13, 2024, Brian Earl Johnston was sentenced to life imprisonment for the “planned, premeditated” brutal killing of Kelly Wilkinson, a young mum-of-three.
A court also heard that in the weeks before the murder, Johnston, who was Ms Wilkinson’s estranged ex-husband, was charged with her alleged rape.
On the morning of April 20, 2021, neighbours in the ordinarily quiet Arundel suburb where Ms Wilkinson lived woke to the sounds of an argument, screaming and a woman yelling “please stop”.
Those who went to investigate found a horror scene.
Johnston was dousing himself in petrol and told those who inquired that he was okay.
Moments later, there was an explosion.
Johnston had ambushed Ms Wilkinson as she stepped outside for a cigarette.
Crown Prosecutor Philip McCarthy KC said first responders discovered Johnston had inflicted multiple sharp force stab wounds, doused her in petrol and set her on fire.
items including a hangman’s noose, zip ties, a crow bar, knives and duct tape were also found at the heavily blood spattered scene.
During the hearing it was revealed that Ms Wilkinson had warned her family that she was so fearful of her estranged husband that she organised a code to alert them if she was in trouble.
If she wrote “I’m considering moving back to Ohio” in their family group chat, it was a warning that something was dreadfully wrong.
A severely burned Johnston jumped in the family’s pool to save himself before fleeing the scene.
He was tracked down by a police dog who found him with severe burns, ligature marks to his neck and lacerations to his wrists.
“There was planning and premeditation – turning up at her home with a 20 litre can of petrol with items in a camouflage bag, dressed in black and with a black mask on your head,” Justice Peter Applegarth said at Johnston’s hearing.
Mr Applegarth said Johnston “obviously wanted to silence her from being a witness in the impending (rape) proceedings”.
“I infer that you wanted to kill her because you lost control of her and had lost her as some kind of possession that you knew you would never regain,” he said.
Ms Wilkinson was aged 18 when she married Johnston after a whirlwind courtship in the United States.
They had three children together.
Johnston is currently serving life imprisonment for Ms Wilkinson’s murder.
Jason Thomas King
This man murdered his 74-year-old landlady, who was found lying in a pool of blood on the Gold Coast, after she’d asked him to leave due to an altercation with another tenant.
Jason Thomas King murdered Susan Walker at her Gold Coast home where he also lived, and conjured up a story of waking one evening in March 2022 to find an unresponsive Ms Walker who he frantically tried to rouse before raising the alarm.
On October 21, 2025, the jury ultimately rejected this tale and found King guilty of murder following a five-day trial.
Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelo suggested King had attacked Ms Walker in a fit of rage, stomping and bashing her head against the ground before resorting to an extension cord to finish the job.
“Sue wasn’t changing her mind about you moving out. I suggest you assaulted her and you fought her for almost 10 minutes. She scratched you and that’s how you’ve got the marks on your chest and your back,” Ms Kelso said.
“She wouldn’t die, you got that extension cord and you wrapped it around her neck and then strangled her.”
The trial heard Ms Walker rented a room to King for just $160 a week giving him free range of the home including the backyard pool.
When he was late with the rent she did not pressure him and helped him source cheap food.
The court heard that in the days before her death Ms Walker had given King a month to move out because he had allegedly hit one of the other two tenants who lived at the home with a mop bucket.
At the time of Ms Walker’s death he had a balance of $1.06 in his bank account.
King’s DNA was found under Ms Walker’s fingernails and vice versa.
King was sentenced to life imprisonment. With time served he will be eligible for parole in about 17.5 years.
Cairns
Isabella Aneta Cisarova
Isabella Aneta Cisarova, then 22 years old, was found guilty of attempting to kill her mother with a box cutter at the conclusion of a trial in August 2024.
Cisarova slashed her mother’s throat on November 24, 2022 on the Cairns Esplanade, later explaining “something exploded in her” immediately beforehand.
Ms Cisarova said on the day of the incident she left the home of her grandmother with the intention of “confronting” her mother after overhearing a conversation between her younger siblings that upset her.
Cisarova told the court on August 1, 2024 that in the lead up on the day of the incident she was “really upset”, her mood had “gone rapidly downhill”, and she was worried about her siblings.
Cisarova said that she left her grandmother in her wheelchair in a hallway while she went back into the home and retrieved the box cutter from a cupboard.
“I wanted to talk to her and confront her about the disturbing things I had heard,” Ms Cisarova told the court.
“I was really angry and wild, I didn’t know what I was going to do, I just wanted the knife with me.”
Ms Cisarova walked, pushing her grandmother in the wheelchair, towards the Esplanade where she knew her mother would be with her siblings during a supervised visit.
She left her grandmother one street away from the Muddy’s playground before continuing on to find her mother.
Ms Cisarova said she observed her mother and waited until her siblings left before she walked towards her mother to “speak to her”.
“It felt weird when I saw she looked at me and said nothing and I changed my mind, I decided I wasn’t going to talk to her and I kept walking.”
Ms Cisarova said she walked about ten metres past her mother before “something exploded” in her.
“I just turned around and went back, I went to her, fell into her, and started hitting her, swinging my arms, I had the knife in my hand,” she said.
“I don’t remember what I said, I know I was screaming. I don’t know what I was thinking or doing, I just snapped.”
The jury was then shown CCTV footage of the incident in which Ms Cisarova could be seen approaching her mother from behind and appeared to draw her right hand across her mother's neck.
Cisarova was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for attempted murder.
Rockhampton
Geoffrey Ernest White
Drunk on vodka and jealously, a man grabbed the largest knife from the kitchen and repeatedly stabbed the mother of his children in their family home.
Geoffrey Ernest White repeatedly plunged the knife into his ex-wife, who suffered stab wounds to her chest, hands, knee and neck, on Father’s Day two years ago, just hours after he was told his children saw her kiss and hug her new partner.
White had been speaking to a neighbour about hurting Amy for at least a month and again just one hour before the brutal attack the Rockhampton Supreme Court heard during his sentencing on September 8.
Now two years later, sitting in a jail, White continued to blame his ex-wife for the frenzied stabbing.
Prosecutor Tiffany Lawrence said the attack was premeditated, fuelled by jealousy and White showed no real remorse despite his early guilty plea.
“The defendant made numerous comments to a neighbour in the month leading up to the attack in circumstances where he had been drinking, although not to the point where he was slurring his speech, where he referred to hurting or killing the complainant and her new partner” Ms Lawrence said.
The Whites were married in 2013, but their relationship deteriorated because of his drinking - consuming 750mL of vodka a day before they broke up and then 1L afterward.
The court heard that on Father’s Day 2023, White was upset when he was told Amy had hugged and kissed her new partner in front of their children and he continued to drink throughout the day.
She said White told police during an interview that his motive was jealousy and disdain for his former partner’s new relationship and new way of life but claimed he did not want to kill her.
White had at the time of sentencing served 736 days in pre-sentence custody which will be counted as time served.
Justice Crow sentenced White to 10 years in prison with a requirement to serve 80 per cent of that sentence.
Christine Fay Freeman
After previously stabbing her partner and serving time behind bars, this Biloela woman was jailed again, this time for stabbing for half-sister.
Christine Fay Freeman, then 56 years old, was sentenced in Rockhampton District Court on September 23, 2025, after pleading guilty to one count of wounding.
Crown prosecutor Tiffany Lawrence said Freeman told her sister “I’ll kill you, you c*** after stabbing her while she was sitting on a chair at Biloela on April 11, 2024.
Defence barrister Maree Willey said the sisters live next door to each other and a day prior; Freeman’s sister had thrown a full can of Jim Beam at her head resulting in Freeman being taken to hospital.
She said the day Freeman was released from hospital she arrived home and found her sister and her cousin drinking wine outside.
Ms Willey said Freeman joined them and an argument blew up due to her sister accusing her of “having something to do with my man”.
She said Freeman told her sister to “knock it off” before retreating inside where she grabbed a knife then went back outside and stabbed her sister.
Judge Jeff Clarke sentenced Freeman to 2.5 years prison, declared 50 days presentence custody as time served and set parole release on January 19, 2026.
Charged: Lauren Ingrid Flanigan
The death of three-year-old Sophia Rose in her front yard in May shocked Queensland.
Her mother, Lauren Ingrid Flanigan, was charged with her murder, before her own death in the following days.
On May 26, 2025, emergency services were called to Moore Park Beach in Bundaberg after reports Sophia had been attacked on her front lawn.
Acting Superintendent Brad Inskip said police received multiple triple-0 calls after the three-year-old girl was stabbed multiple times.
One neighbour said they saw the little girl with her hair splayed out behind her on the pavement with emergency services unable to revive her.
By the following day the victim’s mother, Lauren Ingrid Flanigan, was charged with murder.
Ms Flanigan, 32, died in hospital after she was found unresponsive on the floor of her high-risk cell on May 30.
“No doubt it was a horrific scene,” Mr Inskip said.
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing for everybody, including the witnesses and neighbours, including the emergency services who attended … because it’s not something that we ever want to attend.”
