Teen thug found guilty of Laa Chol’s murder
A teen thug who gatecrashed a city Airbnb party had begged for a lesser charge, but could now face life in prison after being convicted over stabbing the uni student in the heart.
Law & Order
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A teen thug who stabbed university student Laa Chol in the heart after gatecrashing her party at a Melbourne apartment has been found guilty of murder.
A 12-person jury returned the verdict following a three-day trial at the Supreme Court.
The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named because of his age, did not dispute fatally stabbing Ms Chol, but said he never intended to kill her.
He had begged the jury to instead find him guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Murder carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, while manslaughter is 20 years.
CCTV footage of the moment the youth stabbed Ms Chol played a crucial role in the jury’s decision.
Prosecutor Kristie Churchill had told the jury to watch it closely, pointing out four factors that demonstrated his intent including the circumstances of him getting involved in the affray, his use of a weapon, where he stabbed her and the amount of force used.
She said the Crown did not have to prove he intended to kill Ms Chol, but that he intended to cause real serious injury to make out the murder charge.
Ms Chol, 19, was hosting a party with her friend, Dahlia Ali, at an AirBnb they had rented for a girl’s weekend in the city when she was killed in the early hours of July 21 last year.
She had confronted the group of male gatecrashers after the A’Beckett St apartment on the 56th floor of the EQ Tower had become overcrowded and she noticed her phone was missing.
Ms Chol then became embroiled in a fight with one of the youth after trying to push him out of the apartment. It spilt into the hallway, where two of his mates — one who would go on to be her killer — jumped in, punching and kicking her.
“These boys outnumber her,” Ms Churchill said. “They also outsize her in both weight and height. She’s only 161cm and 59kg.”
As one of the males restrained Ms Chol, her killer stepped back, drew a knife from his pocket, and lunged it into her chest with such force it pierced her heart.
“You can see in the video, as she is being held, he maintains his vision on her and then reaches forward to stab her with speed and force,” Ms Churchill said.
“He stabs her in the chest. Not the leg or arm or something that might be less fatal.”
The jury’s guilty verdict to murder meant they did not agree with the boy’s barrister Sam Norton that this was “a stupid, senseless act by a teenager who hasn’t thought through the consequences”.
“It is an absolute tragedy unquestionably, but it is not a murder, it’s manslaughter — an unlawful and dangerous killing,” Mr Norton had said.
He had argued that if his client intended to cause real serious injury he would have continued to use the weapon, especially as Ms Chol showed no immediate signs of injury.
Ms Ali, giving evidence in the trial, said she pulled the young men off Ms Chol and told her to go back into the room, having no idea she had been stabbed.
As Ms Chol entered the room, she collapsed. Her friends rushed to her side, and tried to find Ms Chol’s puffer suspecting she was having an asthma attack.
But then her jacket was pulled open, exposing the wound and extensive bleeding.
Friend Nyankor Joseph described how she tried to put pressure on the wound with a cloth.
“There was a lot of blood around her,” she said. “She was not responsive.”
Paramedics declared Ms Chol dead at 5.30am. By this point, her killer had fled.
He was arrested at his home two days later. The weapon was never found.
An autopsy found the single stab wound, 3cm long and 8.5cm deep, caused Ms Chol’s death.
Justice Stephen Kaye will sentence her killer at a later date.