Alexander Vossen: Man jailed after stabbing neighbour with a kitchen knife

A man who smoked out his northern Illawarra neighbour before trying to kill him with a kitchen knife has been dealt his prison sentence. Read what happened.

A “dishevelled” East Corrimal man sat in an AVL suite at Long Bay Hospital to hear his fate after attempting to murder his neighbour.

Alexander Vossen smoked his neighbour, Anthony King, out of his Birch St unit before stabbing him with a serrated kitchen knife just before dawn in June last year.

Judge Anthony Blackmore convicted Vossen in Wollongong District Court on Wednesday after the 43-year-old had previously pleaded guilty to wounding or causing grievous bodily harm with the intent to murder.

Justice Blackmore sentenced Vossen, who has a paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis, to six years in prison, backdated to June 21, 2021, with a non-parole period of four years.

The sentence is significantly shorter than the maximum 25 years prescribed to the offence with the judge pointing to Vossen’s prior good character and low risk of reoffending “if properly medicated” as reasons for reaching his determination.

The first confronting exchange between Vossen and Mr King came five months prior to the stabbing when the offender stormed into the victim‘s unit thrusting a knife.

Alexander Vossen was sentenced in Wollongong District Court on Wednesday.

Vossen saw Mr King on the lounge before curiously walking out.

Police were called, however, when they knocked on his door, no one answered.

Five months later, Vossen tried lighting a fire on the landing between his unit and his neighbour‘s using nothing but a mixture of seeds, coffee, cinnamon, white pepper and serviettes.

The victim was able to put the fire out with a downstairs neighbour able to hear a verbal fracas between the two men at around 2am.

Mr King was able to get back to sleep, but woke to the smell of smoke at around 5.30am, causing him to rush out to the landing in an effort to extinguish the blaze.

The kitchen knife used by Alexander Vossen during his murder attempt. Picture: Supplied

In the act of doing so, Vossen charged at him and stabbed him four times with a serrated kitchen knife in the shoulder and back.

The victim was in “intense” pain with blood “bubbling” from his wounds, however, he managed to escape by jumping from his first-floor balcony and flagging down a passer-by to contact police.

The neighbour who heard the argument earlier in the night woke at around 6.15am to the screams of the victim and he soon saw Vossen standing in the stairwell yelling, swearing and trying to close the door to the complex.

Police and paramedics arrived soon after with the victim conveyed to Wollongong Hospital with three puncture wounds and a collapsed lung.

The officers arrested a blood-covered Vossen, who when asked about the location of the knife said “up there” while pointing up the stairs towards his abode which he had locked himself out of.

Vossen was conveyed to Wollongong Police Station where he told officers he was diagnosed with schizophrenia a decade prior.

He admitted to police he‘d stabbed Mr King four times and “wanted to kill him because he ”had had enough” believing his neighbour had been entering his unit and tampering with his food.

Vossen also told police the matter had been “reported to the Swiss government by satellite”.

Vossen will be eligible for parole in June 2025 though Justice Blackmore ordered he only be released if he is “stable” and on ”psychiatric treatment”.