Craig McDermott found guilty of the stabbing murder of Fiona Warzywoda
A JURY has seen through the appalling lies of a callous and violent murderer who tried to say his victim, the mother of his children, stabbed herself.
EVEN at the very end of Fiona Warzywoda’s life her killer tried to make it all about him.
The mother-of-four died violently and painfully, as Craig McDermott stabbed her six times, cutting the life of his partner of 18 years tragically short.
But he insisted to police it was Ms Warzywoda, 33, who came at him with the knife.
During his Victorian Supreme Court trial, McDermott gave evidence Ms Warzywoda lunged at him and he put his hand out to block it, before a struggle ensued at a shopping centre in Sunshine on April 16, 2014.
“I don’t know how I got the knife off of her,” McDermott told the court. He said he ran from the scene after the struggle because he was shocked and scared.
The jury though rejected that version of events and his self defence claim, and he was yesterday found guilty of her murder.
They did not believe he didn’t know how she came to be stabbed — six times — or that she could have stabbed herself.
Ms Warzywoda and McDermott separated two months before the fatal attack and had attended Sunshine Magistrates Court on April 16 before they went separately to a nearby shopping centre.
The day before she died, she went to the Federal Circuit Court and told of his threats to kill her.
McDermott refused to enter the courtroom, instead pacing around the building with his brother, clearly agitated, the Herald Sun reported.
McDermott knew the court planned to suspend his contact with their children and would require him to obtain a psychiatric report before he could see them again.
By this time she had barely 24 hours to live.
Crown prosecutor Brendan Kissane QC said Ms Warzywoda told court staff at the hearing the next day that McDermott had approached her and said “you’re f***ed”. After it finished, she went to visit her solicitor. It was then she was attacked by McDermott.
The murder took less than 30 seconds and was not captured on CCTV. However, he was on camera outside a cafe repositioning the knife in his back pocket twice before he went to Ms Warzywoda.
McDermott later denied he was angry with her. It was “the system” that was at fault, he said.
“There was no point being angry at her because I love her, “ he told the jury during the trial. “I was angry at the system.”
The stabbing was the final act in what had been a relationship marred by cruelty.
The Herald Sun reported Ms Warzywoda had endured severe bashings and verbal abuse — including being labelled a slut in front of family — and had seen him cut his wrists in front of her.
When the verdict was read to the court, her relatives cried out and sobbed.
Outside they said their sister could rest in peace and called on the public to sign a change.org petition urging the Federal Government to spend more money to address domestic violence. “Family violence should no longer be tolerated. Nobody should actually experience what Fiona did,” Ms Warzywoda’s brother Paul said.
McDermott was remanded into custody and will return to court for a plea hearing in June.
—with Australian Associated Press