Samurai sword accused breaks down in court, claims not to remember sword strike

The actor accused in the alleged samurai sword murder of Jett McKee has broken down in court, claiming he can’t remember striking the fatal blow.

The actor accused in the alleged samurai sword murder of Jett McKee has broken down weeping in court, but says he cannot remember striking the rapper’s head with the weapon.

However under cross-examination the trial prosecutor has challenged Blake Davis that he said in a secretly taped conversation: “I tell everyone that I can’t remember, but I can remember everything.”

In the conversation with his girlfriend, recorded in secretly planted police listening devices, Mr Davis can be heard saying “I didn’t aim for the head at all … and then it happened and then I saw it and I was like noooo, noooo”.

Mr Davis told his legal counsel, Margaret Cunneen SC, that his memory of the events surrounding Jett McKee’s samurai sword death was “patchy”.

But since his charge for alleged murder of Mr McKee, people in supermarkets and elsewhere had bothered him about what happened, and he had pretended he had no memory.

Conversations from listening devices that were planted in the house where Mr Davis and Hannah Quinn were living following the incident have been tendered to the jury in the trial.

Blake Davis, 31, an aspiring movie stuntman who has appeared in Housos and Fat Pizza, has pleaded not guilty to the alleged murder of Jett McKee near his home at Forest Lodge, Sydney on August 10, 2018.

Mr Davis took to the witness box on a dramatic day in the fourth week of his trial, on which a shock turn for his co-accused Hannah Quinn played out in the courtroom.

The judge in the trial ordered the jury to find Hannah Quinn not guilty on the charge of murdering Mr McKee, and a jury foreman formally read out her verdict of “not guilty”.

Mr Davis continues to be on trial for alleged murder, but Ms Quinn is now only on trial for a charge of accessory after the fact of alleged murder.

Mr Davis recounted Mr McKee entering his home on the day of the incident and demanding “give me your f***ing money or I’ll kill you”.

He said an alarm had gone off in his head telling him the rapper “is going to kill” his girlfriend, Ms Quinn.

But he said he “didn’t have an image of even using the sword” to fatally strike Mr McKee’s head and wept, saying it was “something I’ll have to live with forever”.

Blake Davis (above) declining to give a police interview after his 2018 arrest, took to the witness stand this week to testify at his trial. Picture: NSW Supreme Court.

Hannah Quinn has been found not guilty of the murder of Jett McKee but remains charged with a count of alleged accessory after the fact. Picture: NSW Supreme Court.

It is an agreed fact in the trial that Mr Davis did fatally strike Mr McKee with his samurai sword, but the accused has pleaded not guilty by way of self defence.

In a conversation recorded a year later, Mr Davis can be heard saying he had thought “oh f*** be careful you might hit Hannah” and then “I just swung down”.

Asked about this, Mr Blake told the court that had been an “image (that) … came back to me of things that just happened”.

Under cross examination by Crown Prosecutor Christopher Taylor, denied that he had a clear unbroken memory of wielding the sword strike.

In one argument between the accused couple recorded on August 30, 2019, Mr Davis was recorded yelling at Ms Quinn to “Stop it, stop it, stop it”.

He then said, “I don’t want to go to back to jail. You already put me in jail once”.

Ms Quinn: “I put you in jail?

Mr Davis: “You did.”

Ms Quinn: “Did I kill someone?”

Mr Davis: “You did.”

Ms Quinn: “Did I follow him out with a f***ing sword?”

Mr Davis: “You did. You followed him out and pushed him over you f***ing idiot.

“You set up the whole thing with Count.

“If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Asked by his counsel, Margaret Cunneen SC, Mr Davis told the court the argument was the first time he and Ms Quinn had discussed the event since it had happened.

He said he had lashed out at Ms Quinn “in a mean way … in upset and anger … there wasn’t any truth to it”.

Hereford Street Forest Lodge showing vehicle smeared with Jett McKee’s blood on August 10, 2018. Picture: NSW Supreme Court.

Uber bag with the couple’s $21,000 in cash, a golden gun, nunchucks and phones stashed in a laneway after the incident. Picture: NSW Supreme Court.

Asked who “count” was, Mr Davis agreed it was a man referred to as Frank O’Connor, who the court heard had driven Mr McKee to Forest Lodge on the day and was waiting for him.

Mr O’Connor was a drug dealer who Hannah Quinn had met before he met Mr Davis and began selling them cannabis.

Under cross examination Mr Davis denied he was involved in drug dealings with Mr O’Connor worth up to $20,000.

He said he had used the reference in the conversation with Ms Quinn as “something nasty and horrible” because they were simply arguing.

Mr Taylor put it tot Mr Davis that he knew the damage that could be done by using his samurai sword on Mr McKee’s head and had “used such force intentionally”, which the accused denied.

Prosecutor: “You in fact intended to kill Mr McKee by wielding that sword that day, you were so angry.”

Blake Davis: “No. I was terrified.”

Mr Davis told the court that he was involved in selling cannabis from the flat at Forest Lodge where Mr McKee made his botched home invasion attempt on the day he died.

He said Mr O’Connor, had come to the flat to sell cannabis and had seen him remove cash he described as “cannabis money” from a drawer near the front door.

Around 12.30 on the day in question, Mr McKee, wearing a black balaclava and carrying a pistol, had entered the flat, pointed the gun at him and demanded money.

“Give me all your f***ing money or I’ll kill you”, Mr Davis said McKee had told him, at which he had put his hands up and yelled out, “There’s no money here”.

The samurai sword with which Blake Davis struck Jett McKee on the head in 2018.

Jett McKee’s body lies on the road at Forest Lodge in 2018 after he was struck by a samurai sword. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Blake Davis and Hannah Quinn have both pleaded not guilty to the alleged murder of rapper Jett McKee in 2018. Picture: Christian Gilles

Jett McKee died after being struck with a samurai sword in 2018.

The court heard Mr Davis say he was “completely terrified, in shock” and that Mr McKee had told him, “people know where your f***ing family lives, give me all your f***ing money or we’ll kill your family too”.

He told the court that Mr McKee had pointed the gun at Hannah Quinn, and he stepped in because he thought “I was about to watch her be shot in the head”.

After hearing a “loud metal on metal sound … I woke up on the ground” and he believed he had been shot in the left eye.

Hearing Hannah screaming from outside the flat, “I know I did grab one of my swords” and “ran towards where Hannah was”.

He said his head was “pounding and spinning” from what he would later learn was not a gunshot, but Mr McKee having struck his eye with a knuckleduster.

Through blurred or affected vision in his right eye he said he saw Ms Quinn and Mr McKee in “a kind of tussle” and feared “he’s going to kill her, he’ll shoot her too”.

What he did next was “not something I meant to do, to take a life away” but he couldn’t remember doing it.

“I had pieces of memory come back later on. I don’t have a clear memory. I know I hit him with a sword and I know I did that to save Hannah because he had a gun.

“I still don’t know to this day how the sword … contacted with his head.”

He said he felt “horrible, absolutely horrible” about killing anyone.

Blake Davis and Hannah Quinn at the Supreme Court where on Thursday she was found not guilty of murder, but is still charged with accessory after the fact. Picture: Matrix.

In one secretly taped conversation recorded in 2019 after police planted listening devices into the shared home of Ms Quinn and Mr Davis, the couple have discussed the events which led to their arrest.

Conversations which have been tendered to the jury have parts which are indistinct.

Two other conversations, which are partly indistinct, have the pair crying or agonising over what has occurred.

In one of the recordings Ms Quinn can be heard saying “f***ing you don’t get to come here and do that and me not know who you are.

“And that’s when I ran down the street … screamed … who the f*** are you, who the f*** are you.”

Ms Quinn tells Mr Davis about “the anger and pain that I felt when I saw him hit you I can’t even explain”, to which Mr Davis says, “did you see it, was it a big hit?”

The court heard that Ms Quinn then responds, “I heard you drop I can’t explain the f***ing rush in me when I saw … it was anger”.

In another taped conversation, Mr Davis can be heard saying, “I didn’t aim for the head at all … you were there … and then … it happened.

“And then I saw it and It was like noooo … it’s not what I do.”

Straight after Mr Davis brought down the blow of the sword, the court heard, Ms Quinn and Mr Davis ran off from the scene.

Mr McKee “crawled” along the street, then staggered until he moved no more, and the court heard he was later found to have died from sharp force head injury.

The court has heard both Mr Davis and Ms Quinn were “terrified” people were coming after them or their families to kill them over the next three days before they handed themselves in to police

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