Warren Anthony Scott: South coast man convicted of manslaughter after stabbing attack

A court has heard police could hear ‘gurgling sounds’ after a man was stabbed 31 times by his mate with no apparent motive, a court has heard.

A south coast man has been convicted of manslaughter after stabbing his friend 31 times, in what a judge described as a “sustained attack” with “no premeditation or motive”.

NSW Supreme Court Judge Natalie Adams found Warren Anthony Scott, 38, from Bega, guilty of manslaughter on Wednesday, after he stabbed his 49-year-old friend Edward “Uncle Eddie” Carter inside his mother’s Eden home on April 4, 2019.

Scott, who appeared via video link from Long Bay Hospital, had earlier pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter, which was rejected by Crown prosecutor Nerissa Keay.

The court heard harrowing details of the attack, which left Mr Carter with blood coming out of his mouth and nose when he was found by police after being stabbed 16 times in his legs and a dozen times to the chest, severing arteries and puncturing a lung.

The court heard after the stabbing, Scott calmly left the kitchen knife used in the attack on a nearby coffee table before letting police into the home.

The court heard Scott was “calm and emotionless” after holding a large knife to his mother’s throat and stabbing his friend dozens of times, leaving him to “bleed out” on the couch.

Police took half an hour to arrive on the scene after multiple calls to emergency services, and remained outside the home for 25 minutes before pushing their way through the front door into the home after hearing “grunting and gurgling sounds”, the court heard.

Mr Carter was already dead.

The Eden home where Warren Anthony Scott killed his friend of 20 years Edward Carter. Picture: Google Maps

At one point witnesses looking through a window saw Scott holding the knife between Mr Carter’s eyes after Scott had pinned him to the couch, the court heard.

“You stabbed me, you c***,” Mr Carter was heard to say to Scott, the court heard.

Scott’s mother Jessie told the court her son appeared “possessed” the day of the stabbing.

“[He looked like] something evil you see in a movie,” she told the court during cross examination.

Judge Adams told the court she was convinced Scott, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2008 and had been drinking “for weeks” before the attack, had intended to kill Mr Carter but was impaired at the time.

She told the court Scott was under “some sort of psychosis” at the time of the stabbing, even though his defence team had not relied on a defence of mental illness.

The court heard there was no evidence Scott had been provoked before the stabbing, and Judge Adams rejected Scott’s later excuse that he attacked Mr Carter because he owed him a debt of a few hundred dollars

She told the court Scott had possibly made up the debt.

Judge Adams told the court Scott “was suffering from an abnormality of the mind” linked to his schizophrenia and heavy drinking, which included up to four litres of wine a day.

Warren Anthony Scott was found not guilty of murder in the NSW Supreme Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

She told the court Scott had been “a bit paranoid” and was convinced his mother Jessie and Mr Carter were talking about him.

The court heard Scott possibly had “alcohol related brain damage” and there was no apparent motive for the attack.

The court heard the three had been “listening to music, having a good time”, before “all of a sudden” Scott pulled the largest knife in the kitchen on his mother.

Expert psychiatric witnesses told the court Scott would stop taking his schizophrenia medication, sometimes for as long as a week at a time, when drinking and had difficulty “recalling the day”.

The court heard Scott’s blood alcohol reading on the day of the stabbing was almost six times the legal limit, and he had cannabis in his system.

Witness Kevin Dixon told the court he had never seen Scott “so quiet” the day before the attack, adding he had a “blank stare” and asked if he was on a boat, the court heard.

Scott had called Mr Dixon, a cousin of his mother, for a lift from Bega to Eden on April 3 as he was “freaking out and wanted to see his mother”.

Witness John Stewart, another cousin of Jessie’s, told the court she had never seen Scott and Mr Carter argue and that the pair “got along well”, the court heard.

Scott will be sentenced on December 7.