Geoffrey Ernest White to stand trial for attempted murder of wife

The neighbour of a man who allegedly tried to murder the mother of his children has shared the accused attempted murderer’s sinister thoughts in the lead up to the frenzied knife attack which almost killed her.

Geoffrey Ernest White was charged with alleged attempted murder of Amy White at their Frenchville home on September 3.

“I feel I could stab her in the throat,” or words to those effect are what an accused attempted murderer are said to have told his neighbour minutes before he allegedly stabbed his former wife multiple times.

Geoffrey Ernest White, 54, is accused of attempting to kill his wife, Amy, on Father’s Day last year, about six months after the couple separated but remained living together in Frenchville with their two children, Rockhampton Magistrates Court heard on Tuesday during a committal hearing.

Geoffrey and Amy White were married in 2013.

Police will allege Ms White sustained cuts to her upper chest and neck but was able to call triple-0 herself before she was rushed to Rockhampton Hospital in a critical condition and underwent “lifesaving surgery”.

Police will allege Mr White had been drinking in the afternoon before the alleged stabbing incident.

Mr White was charged the following morning with one count of attempted murder and is in custody at Maryborough Correctional Centre.

Their neighbour, Carlie Newbery, was cross-examined by Mr White’s legal team during the hearing about what he had said to her in the lead up to the incident on September 3, 2023, at the Constantia Crescent residence.

Ms Newbery said she knew the Whites for about nine years and that they were good people.

She said she had listened to Mr White talk about his feelings about the separation many times and that he was “heartbroken”.

When asked about Mr White talking about killing Ms White, Ms Newbery said she never took those comments seriously as she did not believe he meant what he said.

She said Mr White had told her weeks prior to Father’s Day about Ms White being in a new relationship and he was “angry, upset and was working through it”.

Defence barrister Julie Marsden asked Ms Newbery about the comment Mr White made on Father’s Day.

Ms Newbery said it was something along the lines of “I feel I could stab her in the throat” but maybe not those exact words.

Ms Marsden asked her why she did not warn Ms White about the comment.

Ms Newbery said it was another situation she did not take seriously so she did not warn Ms White.

Police on scene at the Constantia Crescent, Frenchville home on Sunday night.

Ms White had been at the beach on Father’s Day, the court heard.

She said after arriving home about 4.30pm, she ordered delivery takeaway and Mr White asked why the dinner charge was on the joint account.

Ms White said she got up from her seat in the lounge room and went into the kitchen to talk to Mr White about finances, telling him the app on the phone was linked to that account.

She said she also told him she had used her own money to pay for family items during the week and retrieved a notepad to write out those items.

Ms White said he was “on edge and just not accepting it… looked like he wanted an argument”.

She said Mr White was “in a state of some sort of agitation” and that he had been drinking quite a lot.

Ms Marsden suggested to Ms White that this was an argument, that Ms White raised her voice but Ms White replied “no”.

Ms Marsden asked her what was she doing right before Geoff cut her with the knife.

“I was standing at the end of the (kitchen) bench,” Ms White said

“I recall Geoff saying to me ‘why don’t you just f*** off to Paul’s. You’re going to anyway.

“He was quite on edge.”

Ms White said because of Mr White’s demeanour, she told him she would “perhaps I will”.

She said she picked up her wallet and as she turned to go get her car keys, Mr White picked out a knife from the knife block and turned around and “plunged the knife into me”.

Ms White said she couldn’t recall where the first cut was but thinks it was somewhere to the left side of her body.

“It was very fast and very much a blur,” she said.

“He held it as a dagger into me.

“Firmly gripped in his hand with the point of the knife straight at my body.

“Pulled it out and punched it back in to my body.”

Ms White said she moved towards another part of the kitchen to try and get away and had turned around doing this.

“I had been stabbed quite a few times by then and I started to feel that my body was going… I was losing my blood pressure,” she said.

“Something switched, something flipped, and I… fight or flight… I’m not sure. I just decided I wasn’t dying on that kitchen floor.”

Ms White said this was when she reached over for the knife Mr White held and they wrestled, resulting in her being cut on her fingers, hands and knee.

She also received a laceration under her chin but she said she did not believe it occurred during the wrestle.

Ms White said she was able to get the knife off Mr White and she had felt his “energy had faltered a bit”.

She said she retrieved her phone, walked out the house and called emergency services.

Ms White said she walked down the bottom of their driveway before she squatted down on the ground due to her injuries.

A single police car was at the scene of the Constantia Crescent home on Monday morning guarding the crime scene were a woman was allegedly stabbed on the night of Sunday, September 3.

She kept the knife, plunged in the ground next to her, until police arrived.

Ms White told police she thought he was trying to kill her, but he hadn’t actually said that to her.

Ms Marsden said she was having trouble understanding how it goes from having a calm conversation to this.

“I would really like to know that, too,” Amy said.

The court heard Ms White spent three days in the Intensive Care Unit in hospital after “she was resuscitated with intravenous fluids, blood transfusion as she was found shocked with low blood pressure” and had all of her lacerations cleaned and stitched and tubes inserted for possible pneumothorax (when air leaks into the space between your lung and chest wall).

Defence barrister Scott Moon questioned Dr Shashank Desai who was the surgeon-in-charge at the time Ms White was treated in hospital.

Mr Moon put to Dr Desai that a small pneumothorax, or collapsed lung, could heal on its own, to which he responded: “If there is no further leakage of air from the air passages or the lung, then they can resolve, a small one can resolve on its own.”

Mr Moon, after taking Dr Desai through the knife wounds, asked him if the patient could have healed from those injuries without medical intervention.

“I don’t think so,” Dr Desai said.

“It is possible. The body can heal a lot of things, but if not dealt with, with the cleaning up and stitching in the manner in which it was dealt with, it would have taken one a long time, and it would put the wounds at risk of getting infected.”

Mr Moon also questioned Dr Desai’s statement given to police in March 2024 where his professional opinion was that Ms White, had she not have received treatment, she had the risk of losing her life from being in shock.

“But doctor, if left untreated, from the injuries you have seen, she could have gone on without any treatment at all, couldn’t she?” Mr Moon asked.

“That is not necessarily true because she was shocked with a low blood pressure and that suggests that either she had some sort of compromise in her blood volume by having lost some blood, or that she had some other (issue) that required resuscitation by the emergency doctors, and if that was not provided… that could put the patient’s life at risk,” Dr Desai said.

Magistrate Lance Rundle ordered Mr White to stand trial in front of a jury in the Supreme Court at a date to be set.

Mr White, who has not made any applications for bail, did not enter any pleas.