Chante Lee White pleads not guilty to the murder of Townsville woman Kayla Golding in trial
A lawyer has told a jury they shouldn’t believe the murder-accused as her police interview was “littered with lies” and she “bragged” to inmates about killing Kayla Golding.
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A jury has been told they should not accept the murder-accused’s account of events she told police as it was “littered with lies” and she later “bragged” to inmates about killing Kayla Golding.
The trial of Chante Lee White who pleaded not guilty to murder has reached its closing arguments and a jury will shortly begin deliberations.
She sat in the dock faced forward and did not look towards the jury.
Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard told them to “reject” Ms White’s account of the night, where she claimed she “blacked out” and did not know where Ms Golding went after she received a cut to the neck and died in a pool of blood in a driveway.
“’I swear I did not see Kayla’ – deliberate lies to police in an attempt to conceal what happened to Kayla Golding in that bedroom,” Ms Sheppard said.
She referred to the police interview Ms White participated in five days after Ms Golding died.
“You would not be convinced of the bulk of what she had to say,” the crown said.
“It was a wholly unpersuaded account littered with lies and untruths.”
She referred to Ms White telling police she just threw the knife after “blacking out”.
“How else did it go out the window in the sheath?” Ms Sheppard said.
“It is inconceivable that in that process, the defendant did not see the blood on that knife.
“It is inconceivable she didn’t see Kayla Golding in the driveway, dying in a pool of her own blood.”
Ms Sheppard reflected on Ms White saying she ended up in a car with her boyfriend at the time and her friend, Erica McConnell and she “curled up” in the passenger seat as they drove around Ms Golding’s body.
“Chante White did not stay to find out what happened in that unit,” the crown said.
“To find out what happened to her friend, because she didn’t need to. She knew she had killed Kayla Golding. She distanced herself from that scene, she was on the run from police.”
She reminded the jury of evidence given by two inmates who claimed Ms White “bragged” about the killing and that she would be downgraded from murder to manslaughter.
“I killed my best friend,” is what an inmate alleged Ms White told them.
Ms Sheppard said the inmate recalled Ms White saying, “That’s what you get when you f—k around with your friend’s man”.
Defence barrister Harvey Walters said the inmates who gave evidence were “fraudsters” who could have made up their claimed conversations with Ms White to look favourable to authorities.
He said there was not a “skerrick” of evidence that she was even in the same area of the prison as one of the inmates that gave evidence.
“You’ve got to scrutinise their evidence with great care indeed,” Mr Walters said.
“People can be motivated to fabricate evidence.
“They’ve got the motivation of a reduced sentence – there are of course long-term convicted prisoners who see this as a possibility or means of which they could get early release or parole.”
He told the jury what happened was a “moment of unimaginable horror” linked to their drug use.
“If you wanted to kill somebody and you didn’t get them with the first stab wound or slice, you would stab them multiple times,” he said.
“What this case is about is what happened in a tiny fraction of time and what my client was thinking and doing in a tiny fraction of time.”
He said the jury could “not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt” that Ms White intended to kill Ms Golding.
“That’s when you go and consider the question of manslaughter,” he said.
Justice David North will give his summing up of the trial before the jury begin deliberating on Wednesday.
DAY SIX: Police followed trail of blood to alleged killer’s unit
A forensic pathologist has told a court that a woman who died from a stab wound to the neck had a drug level in her system that was sometimes fatal, as the jury was shown graphic images of her injuries.
On the sixth day of the trial of Chante Lee White — who has pleaded not guilty to fatally stabbing Kayla Golding—Dr Paul Botterill, who conducted the post-mortem examination, said Ms Golding had 0.70 milligrams of methamphetamine per litre of blood at the time of her death.
“The methamphetamine level is in the reported potentially lethal range,” Dr Botterill said.
“We will see in some people who die with no other explanation who do have that blood level.
“However it is also true that there are lots of people walking around, particularly if they are frequent users of drugs such as methamphetamines who develop a degree of tolerance and are simply not dead at that level.”
Dr Botterill told the court that methamphetamine use could have elevated Ms Golding’s blood pressure and heart rate, potentially contributing to the rate of blood loss from her neck wound.
Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard presented the jury with graphic post-mortem images of the injury, which Dr Botterill said measured three centimetres deep and 8.6 centimetres long.
He said a sharp object had cut through the skin, damaging both the jugular vein and carotid artery.
A sharp hunting knife could have caused the injury, Mr Botterill said.
The jury also heard that Ms Golding had sustained abrasions to her face and body. Dr Botterill said those could have resulted from contact with a hard surface.
During cross-examination, defence lawyer Harvey Walters questioned whether the abrasions could have been caused as Ms Golding exited the third-floor unit, went down several flights of concrete stairs, and fell face-first onto a concrete driveway, as witnesses had reported.
Dr Botterill confirmed that each of the abrasions he observed could have been caused in the manner described.
The jury was also shown body camera footage from police officers who attended the scene where Ms Golding was allegedly wounded. In the video, four officers are seen discussing how they followed a trail of blood through the Condon complex to the unit where Ms White resided.
The footage shows an officer kicking open the door to the unit, which appeared empty. The officers conducted an initial search and found apparent blood stains on a wall and in a bedroom believed to belong to Ms White, based on paperwork found inside.
The jury was later shown a photograph of a knife discovered on the other side of a boundary fence next to the unit complex.
The trial will resume on Tuesday.
DAY FIVE: Alleged killer told someone else to call an ambulance, drove away
The police interview with a woman who had allegedly just killed her friend was played to the jury, where the woman said she told someone else to call an ambulance before driving away.
On day five of the trial where Chante Lee White has pleaded not guilty to fatally stabbing Kayla Golding, Ms White’s initial interview with police was played and an officer asked, “why didn’t you stay and call police?”
“I tried to, I gave the phone to Erica, I was crying ‘somebody get help’,” she said in the interview.
An investigator asked her, “what do you think happened to Kayla?”
“She’s probably dead. I’m guessing she is dead, that’s why you guys are involved,” she said.
Throughout the interview with police she was seen yawning repeatedly, to the point one of the detectives asked, “I thought you said you had a good sleep?”
When asked about the series of events that occurred on May 21, 2021 Ms White said that herself, a friend named Erica and Ms Golding had been at her house in her bedroom waiting for her boyfriend Jamie Alan McAuliffe to come back with marijuana.
She told police Mr McAuliffe had gifted her a hunting knife for her birthday which she had hanging above her duchess with blu-tac.
One of the officers asked, “did you think it was safe to have in the house?” and she said, “not safe around my daughter, but I thought it was safe because it’s in a case”.
She told the officers Ms Golding asked her about the knife.
“Kayla goes ‘oi by the way sorry to randomly change the subject. What’s that? That must be new,” Ms White told police.
“I pulled it down to go hand it to her because she wanted to have a look at it. I got it down, I was standing at the duchess, I went to give it to her.
“That’s when.. it was weird.. everything broke out. It was weird as. As I turned around she was standing with her keys and clothes. This is what I’m trying to comprehend.”
Ms White told police that Ms Golding raised her fist.
“I turned around and went to show her the knife and then remember a fist at me, that’s all I remember,” she said.
“From there I freaked out obviously, I don’t know what happened I threw it and freaked out. I said to Erica, ring the ambulance, ring the ambulance.”
She told police, “I blacked out. Everything went blank on me”.
Ms White said she then gave Erica a phone to call an ambulance and saw a “trail of blood out of the bedroom and out the front door” and asked “where’s Kayla? where’s Kayla?”
She claimed that she saw Mr McAuliffe walking up the staircase of the apartment complex and she “blacked out” again and ended up in the passenger seat of a car and drove off.
When asked towards the end of her interview with police if she could remember anything else she made a sign of the cross motion with her hands and said, “no I swear, I swear on my daughter”.
The trial is expected to continue Monday.
DAY FOUR: Murder-accused ‘quite hysterical’ after alleged stabbing
A couple whose home a murder-accused went to after she allegedly stabbed someone have told a jury about what the woman said and did in the hours that came after.
Chante Lee White who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Kayla Golding, went to a home in West End the morning after she allegedly stabbed her in the neck.
Ms White’s boyfriend at the time, Jamie Alan McAuliffe, went with her to the home of James Gregory Smith who had worked with Mr McAuliffe at the Showgrounds, the jury was told.
Mr Smith took the stand on day four of the trial.
When asked how Ms White seemed at his home he said, “quite hysterical”.
“I heard her saying it was an accident, she was crying a lot in between,” he said.
He said his partner at the time, Emily Brooks had given Ms White spare clothes to change into.
Ms Brooks also gave evidence and said Ms White “seemed quite upset”.
“(She) was all over the joint and quite distressed at that point,” she told the jury.
“She wasn’t talking, she was getting (her boyfriend) to talk for her, I had no idea what was going on at that point, I thought they were fighting.”
She said Ms White stayed in the upstairs of the home laying on the couch.
Another witness who had been in a relationship with Ms White’s brother took the stand and told the jury about a conversation she had with the murder-accused a month prior to Ms Golding’s death.
“She said she wanted to kill Kayla,” she said.
When the woman asked her “why?” she claimed that Ms White said it was because “she was hanging around some guy” and couldn’t recall which one.
Ms White’s defence lawyer, Harvey Walters told the woman she hadn’t included the details of that conversation in her initial statement to police.
He said it was only in 2024 that the woman raised it, “isn’t that correct?” he asked.
“I can’t remember dates, but if that’s what it said I couldn’t argue,” she said.
The trial will continue Friday.
DAY THREE: ‘Dry, red-stained’ images, alleged murder weapon shown in court
A jury of a murder trial was given the alleged weapon used to stab a woman in the neck to examine during the court proceedings.
The courtroom was still packed with people on day three of a murder trial where Chante Lee White has pleaded not guilty to killing her friend Kayla Golding.
Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard called on the officer who was part of the Townsville Criminal Investigation branch at the time Ms Golding died as he had uncovered the alleged murder weapon.
The officer told jurors he walked outside the back of the Riverway Drive apartments when he found a hunting knife in a sheath on the ground below the windows of the unit complex.
He said he didn’t touch the knife before he alerted a scenes of crime officer.
A senior constable scenes of crime officer told the jury she took images of the knife when she became aware of its location and conducted fingerprint examination, and tested it for blood samples.
“I noticed it had dried, red staining on both sides of the knife blade,” she said.
She told the jury it came back positive as blood.
Justice David North told the jury they were able to look at the knife while in the jury room.
The scenes of crime officer was also questioned about photos she took inside Ms White’s bedroom, where the alleged stabbing was said to have occurred.
A picture of the window was shown and she was asked what she had tried to take a picture of.
“A cut in the fly screen between the grills,” she said.
Defence barrister Harvey Walters asked the officer about her claim that the window had a “cut” in it.
“But it seems like an old, frayed opening doesn’t it?” He put it to her.
“It looks like a cut to me,” she replied.
“Really? Okay. With the frayed ends in the object? But is it your opinion that it’s a cut?” Mr Walters put it to the officer again.
“My opinion is that it’s a cut but however, you might be able to ask someone else to do with this type of thing,” the officer said.
The officer had also been shown pictures she took throughout Ms White’s apartment, one of which was the outside of the unit door and when asked what could be seen on it, the officer said, “dried, semitransparent staining”.
The following images showed a mop bucket on the other side of the door inside the unit and “dried, red staining” on the bedroom carpet.
The trial will continue Thursday.
DAY TWO: Witness claims threat before alleged murder
A neighbour of the woman on trial for the murder of Kayla Golding has said the accused told him she wanted to kill Ms Golding days before she died.
On day two of the trial where Chante Lee White has pleaded not guilty to killing her 29-year-old friend, a witness took the stand who said he heard Ms White say she wanted to kill her friend.
The man, James Waddington, told the jury they had been smoking marijuana in Ms White’s bedroom at the Riverway Drive units when she said “I’ll kill Kayla the c-nt”.
He said he took it as a “figure of speech” and “didn’t think it was for real” and asked her “why?”
“Because she smokes all my yandi” she replied.
Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard asked Mr Waddington what Ms White’s demeanour was when she said it.
“Relaxed, she wasn’t aggressive,” he said.
Mr Waddington shared, while visibly upset, the moment he saw the person he now knows to have been Ms Golding stumble out of the units and lay face down in a pool of blood in the driveway.
“I heard ‘help’ it was struggled, she was gargling,” he said.
“I saw a little car leave. It went around the body.”
The witness was asked questions by defence barrister Harvey Walters who said Mr Waddington didn’t tell police in his original statement that he had seen a car drive around the body, but he only heard it.
The witness agreed that he could have said that in his statement, but stood by that he saw a car.
Mr Walters put to the man that residents of the units would have spoken with one another following the alleged murder which he rejected.
“We were confined to our units,” he said.
“It was in lockdown. We had police on every level for at least four to five days.”
Mr Walters pressed the witness on his own previous criminal convictions and asked when he last used methamphetamine was, to which the man had admitted he previously struggled with.
The lawyer asked the man how long it had been since he used methamphetamine before making the observation of seeing the vehicle.
“Weeks mate, weeks. A long time. I was dead straight, cooking a feed. I was cooking dinner, do you know what meth does to ya? Think about it … definitely doesn’t give you the munchies,” the witness said.
Mr Waddington’s former girlfriend who was at the unit complex the night Ms Golding died, along with other neighbours took the stand where they gave evidence about what they saw and heard that evening.
The trial is set to continue on Wednesday.
DAY ONE: Friends had ‘close bond’ before alleged murder
A woman’s family and friends have poured into the courtroom as her alleged killer faces trial for her death.
Murder accused, Chante Lee White, has pleaded not guilty to killing Kayla Golding on May 21, 2021.
On Monday morning, in the Townsville Supreme Court, 12 jurors and two reserves were empanelled to decide the fate of Ms White.
She is alleged to have fatally cut her roommate in the neck.
Ms White, now 33 sat in the dock in a dark-coloured pants suit with little expression on her face.
Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard listed the key witnesses to be heard throughout the trial which included scenes of crime officers, paramedics and detectives and said the jury can be expected to hear the name Jamie Alan McAuliffe.
Ms Golding was found by neighbours lying face down in a pool of blood in the driveway of 771 Riverway Drive, Ms Shephard said as she addressed the jurors in her opening statement.
“Although police and ambulance took only 14 minutes to arrive on scene, when they got there she was no longer moving,” the prosecutor said.
She said an autopsy showed she died from a “large sharp-forced wound to the left hand side of the neck” that was 86mm in length.
She alleged Ms White cut Ms Golding’s neck while they stood in a bedroom before the victim fled down the stairs leaving a trail of blood which is alleged to have been cleaned by Ms White afterwards.
Ms Golding had been staying with Ms White at her unit in the week leading up to her death.
“(Ms White) argued with the deceased, retrieved a hunting knife from her duchess and cut her to the left hand side of the neck,” Ms Sheppard said.
“It was a deliberate act, an act of jealousy but whatever the motivation at the time (Ms White inflicted the wound and intended to kill Kayla Golding or at the very least intended to cause her grievous bodily harm.
“Having murdered her in her unit … she disposed of the hunting knife, she cleaned Kayla Golding’s blood in the unit, she got herself away from the unit prior to the arrival of emergency services and her boyfriend drove off, past (Ms Golding’s) body as she laid bleeding in the driveway.”
Police found Ms White hiding in a cupboard in West End two days later, the jurors were told.
Ms Sheppard said the jury was going to hear from neighbours who found Ms Golding, and a friend who spoke with Ms White about her frustrations towards the victim.
“(Ms White) said ‘I am going to kill Kayla that c-nt’,” the crown said.
When asked why, Ms White said “for always smoking my yandi”.
The crown said Ms White’s boyfriend was accused of being unfaithful and the pair argued in the lead up to Ms Golding’s death.
Ms Sheppard said Ms White and a friend who had been in the room when Ms Golding was cut, went to McDonalds in Aitkenvale before the defendant went to the address in West End where she would ultimately be arrested.
“She denied any involvement in the circumstances surrounding Ms Golding’s death, she said she simply blacked out when in the bedroom couldn’t tell police what happened,” the crown said.
Defence barrister Harvey Walters, instructed by Rennick Lawyers, said the prosecution could not prove without reasonable doubt that Ms White intended to kill Ms Golding and that what happened that night was “far more nuanced” and “far more tragic” than what’s presented.
“The prosecution paints a picture of a cold-blooded killing, a deliberate act of malice,” he said.
“I implore you as you listen to evidence presented in this case, to keep your minds open.”
He said Ms White and Ms Golding had a “friendship fractured by the insidious grip of addiction”.
“They weren’t just acquaintances they were close friends, they shared a bond and shared a history and tragically shared a problem with substance abuse.”
He told the jury if they were not without reasonable doubt that Ms White killed Ms Golding they had to consider the alternative charge of manslaughter.
Justice David North said the trial could take up to seven days.
The trial will resume Tuesday.
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