Strangled, bitten, beaten: Savage DV thug locked up after threatening to kill woman
After just a few months of dating, this Toowoomba tradesman subjected a woman and her child to shameful acts of violence, followed by years of hell as he dragged the matter before the courts professing his innocence.
A Darling Downs tradesman will spend the next six months in jail for acts of “savagery” he committed against a woman he’d only been dating for a few months.
The Toowoomba father, Adam Stuhlfauth, was sentenced to a three-year jail term on Thursday, November 21, after pleading guilty to strangulation and three counts of assault occasioning bodily harm with the aggravation of it occurring in a domestic violence setting.
The Toowoomba District Court heard another aggravating feature of his disgraceful crimes was that one of the attacks occurred in front of the woman’s young child, who was cross-examined and called a liar at a pre-trial hearing.
Stuhlfauth originally denied his crimes, lied to police about deleting CCTV footage capturing the assaults, and was going to take the charges before a jury in March.
Crown Prosecutor Peri Cardiff said Stuhlfauth was dating the woman, who lived outside Toowoomba, for about six months before the first assault occurred.
Ms Cardiff said after a day of drinking, Stuhlfauth became enraged at the woman after she let her young child into her room, because he didn’t want the child to lie down with her in bed.
Stuhlfauth forced the child from the room and screamed at the woman for disobeying his orders.
While the child was in hysterics outside the room, Ms Cardiff said Stuhlfauth “lost it” at the woman after she told him not to touch her child and tried to leave the room to comfort them.
Stuhlfauth grabbed her by the throat with one hand and began choking her, and hit her in the face with an elbow or fist, before latching onto her arm with his teeth while pinning her on the bed.
“Why did you make me do that?” He said.
He took her phone so she couldn’t call for help, however she ended up finding it in his car and used it to document her injuries.
Later that night, the court heard he cried to the woman and told her it wouldn’t happen again, and she tried to end the relationship.
“I know bikies who murder women and children,” he told her.
A few weeks later, when the woman was trying to leave Stuhlfauth’s home following an argument, Ms Cardiff said he used his car to block hers in, before picking her off the ground by her throat with both hands and biting her on the face.
“I’m going to f-cking kill you and bury you,” he said while choking her outside his home.
He then dragged her to his front door.
When police arrived, he asked the officers to make her leave and said she was “just a loser”.
The court heard at the time of the offences, Stuhlfauth wasn’t medicated for his ADHD, was using drugs and alcohol, and was grieving the loss of two family members.
Judge John Allen KC told Stuhlfauth there was a reason the offence of strangulation was treated seriously by the courts, as it was often a precursor to homicide, along with domestic violence, which was a scourge upon the community.
Judge Allen said Stuhlfauth’s behaviour was savage and manipulative and that it was difficult to accept the submission he was significantly remorseful, given the harm he had caused, both mentally and physically, to the woman and her child, the lies, and long-held professions of innocence.
Despite Stuhlfauth’s rehabilitation efforts while on bail, Judge Allen said given the seriousness of the crimes, a term of imprisonment was warranted to ensure others were deterred from committing domestic violence.
Stuhlfauth was sentenced to a three-year jail term, and the 66 days he spent on remand were declared time served.
He will be released on parole on June 16, 2026.
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Originally published as Strangled, bitten, beaten: Savage DV thug locked up after threatening to kill woman
