Teen pleads not guilty to stabbing murder of mother’s partner at Baringa in 2022

Paramedics attending the alleged stabbing murder of a man by his partner’s 16-year-old child have told a Brisbane court resuscitation was not an option when they arrived.

Forensics police on the scene at Baringa in September 2022. Picture: Patrick Woods.

A child accused of murdering his mother’s partner was “rocking backwards and forwards” and talking to himself according to paramedics who arrived at the Sunshine Coast home before police to discover the alleged victim on the kitchen floor surrounded by a “massive amount of blood”

The then 16-year-old has pleaded not guilty to murder with the Crown alleging he fatally stabbed the 42-year-old man 35 times late on September 7, 2022.

Jurors in the trial had their computer screens switched off for the viewing of graphic autopsy photos.

Justice Frances Williams told the jurors the photos “may be distressing or confronting to some of you” and a decision had been made to turn off the screens immediately in front of them.

The photos which showed the alleged victim with multiple stab wounds were still shown on larger court screens.

“We thought this was an appropriate way of presenting the evidence this afternoon,” Justice Williams said on Wednesday.

The teenager, who was 16 at the time and can’t be identified, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 42 year old at their Baringa home on the Sunshine Coast on September 7 2022.

Dr Jennifer McCourt, a forensic pathologist who examined the deceased a number of days later, told the jury there were 35 “sharp force injuries to his body”.

Over the next two hours the Brisbane Supreme Court was shown multiple photos taken during the autopsy as Dr McCourt detailed the various wounds, one of which had a track length of 11cm.

The teenage boy has pleaded not guilty of the 42-year-old man's murder.

Dr McCourt said the knife used had a total length of 23.9cm and a blade length of 10.7cm.

“The sharpness of the tip, subjectively is described as very sharp, which in other words would mean pinpoint,” she said.

Earlier neighbours described an argument, frantic screams and a male voice saying “what have I done” the night the youth, whose reconstructed blood alcohol reading may have been as high as 0.157, allegedly murdered the man.

One neighbour said he was woken about 11.30pm by the boy’s mother and her partner arguing.

He said he could hear the man saying he had supported the mother and her children.

“From (her) side of things I could hear pretty much just saying stay away from me you piece of s-h-i-t,” he said.

“It got a little bit aggressive, and then kind of not, it was just on and off.”

The neighbour said it was about 11.50pm when the woman started “screaming frantically”.

“I could hear another gentleman’s voice, which was probably the young fella, saying ‘I’m so sorry. Sorry. Oh shit. Oh shit’ just over and over,” he said.

The neighbour’s partner said she heard the woman say “how could you? get the f***k” away from me” to who she assumed was the alleged victim.

“(She) was definitely distressed … she was quite worked up and I could hear her tone of voice was very hysterical,” she said.

The woman said the man’s voice was “quite angry”.

She said the arguing got progressively worse before she heard a male voice saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to”.

“It was about midnight when I heard the male voice say ‘shit shit shit what have I done’,” the witness said.

Dr Mitchell Shaw gave evidence that from the youth’s blood alcohol reading of 0.037 at 3.30am he did a count back estimating the defendant’s reading at 11.30pm the night before would have been between 0.077 and 0.157.

A blood test the following day detected no alcohol but borderline trace amounts of THC, the court heard.

He “very much” agreed with the youth’s barrister Charlotte Smith that younger people were more vulnerable to “the disruptive effects of alcohol on their executive function”.

Earlier in the day. paramedics told the Brisbane Supreme Court that no attempts were made to resuscitate the man due to the amount of blood loss and the severity of his injuries.

The decision was made within minutes of the paramedics arriving at the youth’s Baringa home, his trial heard.

Paramedic Chris Kirby along with his partner were the first paramedics on the scene with a youth, which the Crown say was the defendant, waving them down outside.

“He said something along the lines of ‘hurry up he’s bleeding out’,” Mr Kirby said.

Despite being called to a purported cardiac arrest Mr Kirby said they soon realised that wasn’t the case.

“So I asked the question, who did this, and where’s the knife,” he told the jury.

“And somebody replied ‘it was the teenage boy’.”

Pointing to her client, barrister Charlotte Smith asked Mr Kirby whether that was the boy he saw outside waving them down.

“I can’t say to that I’m sorry,” he said.

Paramedic Benjamin Bowcock was in the second team that arrived that night.

He said he located a knife about 1.5 metres from the patient and noticed a teenager sitting on a nearby couch with an adult female “rocking backwards and forwards”.

Mr Bowcock later informed them that the adult male was dead and police would be attending.

“The older teenage male said to his mother ‘I love you’ and he also said to her, something to the effect of ‘we weren’t safe, he would have killed us or killed you’.

“He was crying, he appeared distraught essentially … he did appear to be having a conversation with his mother and talking to himself.”

He said the paramedics considered whether to sedate the boy but ultimately decided against it.

His partner Daniel Hirsimaki said he was concerned about their safety.

“I noticed that there was a massive amount of blood that was in the kitchen, around the patient’s legs area,” he said.

“I suspected that it was an assault and someone had been killed, and I was concerned for our safety that we weren’t sure who had done this.”

He said the man in the kitchen was flatlining and had a large “central, penetrating chest wound”.

“We had a quick team discussion and we decided that because of the amount of blood that was lost, the significance of his injury … that he had non-survivable injuries and that’s why we didn’t start resuscitation efforts.”

Mr Hirsimaki said the teenage boy in the house said “what have I done”.

Police arrived and the paramedics were asked to leave the home, he said.

The trial continues before Justice Williams.

Originally published as Teen pleads not guilty to stabbing murder of mother’s partner at Baringa in 2022