Freedom Anderson found guilty of murdering Nicholas Braid on Gold Coast

A jury has taken just one hour to convict a woman of the stabbing murder of a law graduate on the Gold Coast.

Nicholas Braid was fatally stabbed.

A 23-year-old woman has been found guilty of the 2020 stabbing murder of law graduate Nicholas Braid at Surfers Paradise.

It took a jury just one hour to deliver its verdict, unanimously convicting Freedom Mona Maunsell Anderson on one count of murder.

Anderson buried her head in her hands as the verdict was handed down late on Wednesday in the Brisbane Supreme Court.

The trial previously heard Anderson stabbed 35-year-old Mr Braid in a bizarre encounter due to grievances she held over a belief he had not told her his real name.

Mr Braid’s aorta was punctured in the knife attack outside a Gold Coast hotel on April 21, 2020, and he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at hospital.

Freedom Mona Maunsell Anderson is taken into custody in April 2020.

Anderson made no attempts to help her victim and fled the scene. She disposed of the murder weapon and asked a friend to get rid of the clothes she had been wearing.

The clothes were discovered in a garbage bag in the same apartment where police found and arrested her the day after the stabbing.

Anderson later made admissions about the stabbing to an covert police operative placed in the cells with her after her arrest, telling them: “I just went in and out”, referring to the knife attack.

The trial was plagued by early delays with a certificate allowing the covert operative to give evidence anonymously not produced in time for the trial.

Justice Frances Williams will sentence Anderson on Thursday.