Blacks Beach stabbing: Sunbathing woman stabbed in random attack

A sunbather who was allegedly stabbed multiple times in a random attack as she lay on a Queensland beach screamed “I don’t want to die” as two tradies ran to her aid. A 16-year-old boy has since been charged.

A 16-year-old boy has been charged after allegedly stabbing a young woman multiple times as she sunbathed on a popular Mackay beach.

Police allege Kaitlin Jones, 23, was sunbaking on Blacks Beach on Monday morning when she was confronted by an unknown male who then stabbed her multiple times in the neck and body.

A 16-year-old boy later handed himself into police, before he was charged with acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm late on Monday night.

He is due to appear in the Mackay Children’s Court on Tuesday.

Kaitlin Jones, 23, was sunbathing on Blacks Beach when a stranger allegedly stabbed her multiple times.

Tradies Paul Ferdinand and Gav Odgaard were on a nearby house construction site at the end of Blacks Beach Rd when they heard a woman screaming for help, saying “I don’t want to die”.

The pair looked towards the beach, about 25m from the site, and saw Ms Jones standing on top of a dune at Blacks Beach about 11.45am.

She was doubled over holding what they initially thought was a baby.

Mr Odgaard scrambled down the ladder to the woman, Mr Ferdinand close behind, and as he got closer, saw the blood streaming down Miss Jones’s face, arm and legs, and called back to Mr Ferdinand to phone an ambulance.

“When I got closer to her I saw the blood on her face and on her arms, and I could hear the tremble in her voice,” Mr Odgaard said.

“I ran up to her and she said, ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die’, and she said she had been stabbed.

“I listened to the way she was breathing and her voice, and she said she had been stabbed in the chest and I realised she hasn’t had a punctured lung and her breathing was normal,” he said.

“The cut, the stab wound to the side of the head, was bleeding more than any of the wounds that I could see, but she constantly kept pleading, ‘help me, help me, I don’t want to die’.”

As Mr Odgaard, a carpenter with extensive first aid training, got the woman comfortable in a donga campsite on the construction site as paramedics arrived, she asked Mr Ferdinand to phone her mother and tell her what had happened.

Police have swarmed on reports of a stabbing in Blacks Beach. Picture: Tara Miko

“Her mum was up in Bowen, her boyfriend was asleep, he was on night shift,” Mr Ferdinand said.

“The mum thought it was a hoax she didn’t believe me. The young girl said, ‘mum no, it’s me’.”

The woman was able to recount to the builders what happened, but the pair did not see any sign of the alleged attacker.

Ferdinand Constructions owner Paul Ferdinand and carpenter Gav Odgaard tell of the moment a 23-year-old emerged from Blacks Beach where she had been sunbaking and was allegedly stabbed by a 16-year-old boy in a random frenzied attack at the end of Blacks Beach Road in Mackay. Picture: Tara Miko

“She said she was lying down sunbaking, he’s walked past her, she didn’t really take too much notice and 10 minutes later he’s come back on top of her, stabbing her,” Mr Ferdinand said.

“He’s lucky we didn’t see him.”

Detective Inspector Tom Armitt said the woman was in a stable condition in Mackay Base Hospital and would need “attention to some serious lacerations”.

Police crews are at the scene of an alleged stabbing at the end of Blacks Beach Rd in Blacks Beach. Picture: Tara Miko

He said officers spent the afternoon doorknocking the nearby area and a cordon was set up to track the alleged offender.

“It’s a concerning act, it’s a disgraceful act and something we are treating very seriously,” he said.

“It appears that at the time of the offending there were no other persons on the beach.

“This end of Blacks Beach is quite an isolated areas so there were no other witnesses.”

The Blacks Beach Road construction site was a crime scene until late afternoon but the pair was back on the tools as police continued the investigation.

“What could you do? I couldn’t just sit around, I’d already had four or five smokes to calm down so I just asked the cops if we could go back and start working,” Mr Ferdinand said.

A part of Blacks Beach was closed with officers stationed at public access ways to secure the area.