John Matthew Fitzgerald found guilty of stabbing man in the neck

A Brisbane man has been found guilty of stabbing a drunk stranger in the neck during an “act of random violence” that left the victim fighting for life.

A Brisbane man has been found guilty of stabbing a drunk stranger in the neck during an “act of random violence” that left the victim fighting for life.

John Matthew Fitzgerald was on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to the attempted murder of Josue Natanael Espinosa-Cassanelli at a Woolloongabba unit in 2019.

After less than three hours of deliberation, the jury found Fitzgerald not guilty of attempted murder, but guilty on the alternative charge of malicious act with intent, which he had also denied.

Witnesses described how they watched in shock as “Fitzy” walked suddenly through the door and – without saying a word – plunged a folding knife into Mr Espinosa-Cassanelli’s neck just before 11pm on April 18, 2019.

Mr Espinosa-Cassanelli stumbled down the driveway and collapsed on Park Rd after he was stabbed in the neck. Picture: Richard Waugh

“There was blood all over the floor, it covered the entire living room floor,” one witness Cara Stevens told the jury.

“It was just like a fire hydrant had been released.”

Minutes before the attack, Mr Espinosa-Cassanelli had been chided for drunkenly barging into the unit looking for an acquaintance and had sat on a couch in the living room of the Park Rd apartment.

But the court heard the issue had resolved when Fitzgerald “walked inside, lined him up and stabbed him”.

After he was wounded, Mr Espinosa-Cassanelli stumbled outside and collapsed on a nearby driveway, where one of the people from the apartment helped him until paramedics arrived.

He was rushed to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in a critical condition and underwent emergency surgery for an 8cm wound that almost severed his left jugular vein.

He still has no memory of the attack.

Text messages read to the jury revealed that Fitzgerald had sent a flurry of text messages just after the stabbing telling a friend he was in “big big trouble” and needed help.

During the trial Barrister Jessica Horne suggested that Fitzgerald had never entered the unit and that someone else who was already inside had stabbed Mr Espinosa-Cassanelli.

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Ms Horne said even if the jury believed that her client was the knifeman, there was no evidence to suggest that he had intended to murder Mr Espinosa-Cassanelli.

“I’m asking you to remember that the evidence of the witnesses was that this incident occurred very quickly,’ she said.

“I suggest that the absence of any words spoken… the absence of any evidence about a motive, the fact that the force used was only required to be moderate – all of those things would mean there is an inference open that there was an intent to do some lesser harm…”

Fitzgerald was remanded in custody and will be sentenced at a date to be fixed.