Mourners farewell CBD stabbing victim Michaela Dunn
Overwhelmed with grief, Michaela Dunn’s inconsolable mother Joanne hugged the white casket muttering her daughter’s name as her husband Jim gently rubbed her back. Police allege Ms Dunn was brutally murdered by Mert Ney in Sydney’s CBD.
NSW
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Mourners filed by the coffin one by one, placed a sunflower beside the framed picture of murdered Michaela Dunn and kissed it.
Once gleaming, the casket was now smudged by the touches and kisses of those who saw Michaela, 24, not just as a Sydney sex worker living the independent life she chose, but as a daughter, sister and niece whose infectious smile and magnanimous heart touched them all.
“Writing a eulogy for my baby sister is something I thought I would never do,” her lawyer sister Emily told a packed Waterway Chapel at Rookwood Cemetery on Monday.
“I was so excited at the day she was born, we didn’t get off to a good start, you cried a lot, cut all the hair off my Troll Doll and I was so frustrated that everyone kept saying that you looked like Snow White, even though she had black hair and you had beautiful, blonde curly hair.
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“We had our own language that later turned to eye rolls and looks but we always knew what each other meant.
“My heart is full of sadness today, it does not feel quite real, no one understands you like a sister does.
“To think life goes on without you is incomprehensible.
“You were curious, loving, generous, caring, and temperamental but you were joyous.
“You’re one of the kindest, fearless souls I know, the world is a sad place without you, I miss you very much.”
Fighting back tears, she went on: “I love your silliness. I remember coming back from England, told you to travel but you were too stingy for that.
“And then you went, the Philippines, Vietnamese, Greece, Fiji, Morocco, Sri Lanka.
“I wish we had more time there are so more stories about your travels I will never get to hear.”
Hundreds of mourners wearing a splash of colour at the family’s request packed the chapel to pay their last respects to the university graduate whose life was cut short when she was allegedly brutally murdered during a knife-wielding rampage through the Sydney CBD two weeks ago.
Where there was no room, they stood in the drizzling rain as her coffin was carried out by pallbearers to the track of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.
Overwhelmed with grief, her inconsolable mother Joanne, a cleaner, hugged the white casket muttering her daughter’s name as her husband Jim gently rubbed her back.
Ms Dunn died after unemployed Ney, 20, allegedly slashed her throat in an apparent psychotic attack at a unit on Clarence Street in the city.
He is accused of carrying a butcher’s knife and shouting “Allahu Akbar” after attacking Ms Dunn and using his phone to record a video that he sent to a friend.
He is also accused to slashing Linda Bo, 41, in the shoulder at the Hotel CBD while running through the city’s streets two weeks ago.
Ney has been charged with murder, attempted murder, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, intentionally choking with recklessness and common assault.
He is not charged with any terrorism offences.
Struggling to read her tribute through glasses stained with tears, Ms Dunn’s close friend of 13 years recalled the “crazy cat lady who adored her fur babies,” Snoop and Cami.
“She always got angry if I did not message and say I was home safely and she came with me when I finished school to get my nose pierced and held my hand,” she said.
“She offered so much backing and support, because she believed you could do anything in the world, she lived life to the fullest.
“She was the biggest blanket thief, I miss waking up next to her when we shared nights out, her long blonde hair over my eyes.
“She didn’t believe in strangers, only friends she hadn’t met yet.”
Ney’s alleged reign of terror started when he left emergency housing in Blacktown with a kitchen knife earlier in the day, police will allege.
He caught a train to the city and was captured on CCTV at Town Hall at 1.04pm.
It will be alleged Ney sent a text message to an escort service for a “30 minute GFE”, or “girlfriend experience”, with Ms Dunn.
He turned up to unit 26 at 104 Clarence St at 1.44pm and Ms Dunn was dead before 1.57pm, police will claim.
Detectives have been told Ms Dunn rented the $700-a-week, fourth-floor apartment with a friend for the purpose of meeting clients.
It is understood the two women exchanged texts when a client was booked and checked in again when an appointment was finished.
The friend alerted police after arriving to find her Michaela dead in the apartment.
Ney’s lawyer has since revealed he has been “struggling” in a prison cell on just Panadol pills and requested Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Network officials organise his mental health medications.
“He has asked numerous times to see justice and health for his mental health issues,” his lawyer Zemarai Khatiz told Central Local Court last Monday.
“The most he’s got so far is Panadol, and nothing else … He’s suffering.”
Outside court Mr Khatiz said Ney, who reportedly suffers from depression, OCB and anxiety, was battling insomnia.
“He has not got anything, the most he has is Panadol, he can’t sleep and is suffering from a lot of issues,” he said.
His case will be heard on October 15 at Central Local Court.
