Glenfield man James Fredes pleads guilty to the murder of former partner Erana Nahu
A man has confessed to the stabbing murder of his former partner who was asleep in her own bed, telling police he was sexually frustrated and jealous of her new love.
Macarthur
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The inner thoughts of a confessed murderer have been revealed with 60-year-old James Fredes today pleading guilty to stabbing his former partner Erana Nahu to death as she slept in her own bed in Sydney’s southwest in October 2018.
The pair, who had once been in a relationship for about 14 years, were living together at Grahame Ave, Glenfield, when Nahu told her ex-partner she was seeing a man she worked with. Less than 48 hours later, she was stabbed in the back in her own bed.
About 1am on October 11, Fredes walked into his former partner’s room and laid down on her bed and “tried to initiate intimacy”, the agreed facts state.
Nahu rejected his advances, elbowed him and ordered him away, only for Fredes to soon return to the bedroom with a 35cm knife.
When interviewed at Campbelltown Police Station in the hours following the murder, Fredes said the rejection triggered him.
“She totally refused me, turned around, elbowed me in the stomach and then something snapped in me,” he said.
He told police he stood in Nahu’s bedroom with the knife for about 20 seconds before plunging the blade into her back.
The screams woke Nahu’s cousin Potaua Roberts, who also lived at the Glenfield home, who found Fredes sobbing over his former partner saying “I’m sorry. I’m sorry”. Nahu died less than an hour later.
Fredes immediately told police officers at the murder scene he stabbed Nahu because he was jealous, saying “she was having an affair with somebody else”.
He later told police during an interview at the police station that he “really needed” intimacy.
“I know you’re (Nahu) getting it but what about me, you know,” he told police.
“She said ‘no more (intimacy) with you’. I thought why? Why no more with me? I look after the children and I’m doing chores at home and everything.
“It’s a big piece of land and I do the lawn mowing as well.”
Fredes has been remanded in custody since the day of the murder and has been committed for sentence in the Supreme Court. The matter will return to court on March 3.