Chilling vision of police interrogating Hannah Quinn over alleged samurai sword murder
Chilling vision of a police interrogation of a young woman describing her boyfriend allegedly ‘slicing up’ a man with a samurai sword has been released.
The lovers accused in the alleged samurai sword murder of Jett McKee secretly discussed the final moments before the rapper’s death, according to taped conversations recorded on listening devices planted in their home.
The trial of Hannah Quinn and Blake Davis was played two different secretly taped conversations between the pair in which they tearfully recount the details of the sword strike.
Although much of it is indistinct, the pair tearfully discuss why they pursued the rapper along the street and why Mr Blake hit him with the samurai sword.
The court heard it was an agreed fact that Blake Davis struck the sword blow on Mr McKee’s head that killed him.
Ms Quinn and Mr Davis have pleaded not guilty to the alleged murder of Mr McKee near the home of Mr Blake on Hereford Street, Forest Lodge on Friday, August 10, 2018.
Justice Natalie Adams said it was a matter of whether the assault was unlawful, or lawful due to self defence or other defences.
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.
If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
The court has heard that Mr McKee allegedly committed an armed home invasion on the couple, who were “drug dealers”, and had struck Mr Davis in the face with knuckledusters and threatened Ms Quinn with a pistol.
The court heard on Tuesday that hours after the assault on Mr McKee, police seized documents from Blake Davis’s flat including a resume and a curriculum vitae.
Detective Senior Constable Scott Kelly agreed with Crown Prosecutor Christopher Taylor
that Mr Davis’s work skills included a “10 year practitioner of martial arts”.
He also had a professional affiliation with Kyokushin International Martial Arts Australia, was a trained senior first aid officer, a pool lifeguard and had a lifesaver bronze medallion.
Another agreed fact, the court was told, was that Blake Davis had previously met the person who had dropped off Mr McKee at Hereford Street on the day of the attack.
Mr Taylor tendered three swords and a long black knife also seized from Mr Davis’s home in the same police search.
The court also heard that Quinn denied to police four days after the attack that she had tackled Mr McKee immediately prior to his being struck by Mr Davis with the sword.
Asked by detectives at the end of six hours in a police interview room, the 26-year-old said “I didn’t tackle him, the only thing I did was drag my bag back”.
Ms Quinn was referring to a black shoulder bag she claimed Mr McKee stole from her before she gave chase followed by Mr Davis carrying the samurai sword.
Shaking and crying with her voice wavering Quinn was dressed in a blue forensic jumpsuit at Newtown Police Station as she told detectives what had happened the afternoon she returned to her lover’s flat and encountered Jett McKee.
The former kindergarten teacher said she noticed a man “looking around everywhere” in the front yard.
As she mentioned it to her boyfriend Blake Davis and handed him his coffee, the intruder burst in and pointed a gun at the couple, Quinn said.
“He was really intimidating … he said there would be more people coming if he didn’t give him some money,” she said.
He said there were people who knew who our family was and that they would hurt our families.’
Quinn told police she was screaming, stressing, and ‘was not sure what was going on’.
“He had a gun in one hand and put a knuckleduster on the other hand and punched Blake,” she said.
“Blake fell down, I think he blacked out, I’m not sure but he fell to the ground.”
Ms Quinn said Mr McKee then grabbed a bag that was hanging off her shoulder and ran off.
She then chased after Mr McKee, who had run out the front gate onto the street.
“I tried to snatch my bag back and he turned around and tried to punch me but I stepped backwards and he lost his footing,” she said.
“He fell to the ground and was holding the gun up to me and I’ve just frozen.
“And that’s when Blake ran up and he hit the guy … and I just saw blood. I just ran. I freaked out.
“We were just yelling, screaming, crying. [Blake] grabbed, I thought it was like a tarp thing or something, and wrapped the sword up in it.”
Running back to the unit, Quinn said the pair was having “panic attacks and I was freaking out”.
“We thought there might be more people coming so we just got out of there. We jumped over the back fence,” she said.
The court has heard Ms Quinn discarded the bag some time between fleeing the street after Mr McKee was fatally struck and handing herself into police.
Asked by detectives, “in relation to the death of Jett McKee, did you at any time make a plan … or have any premeditation in regards to murdering Jett McKee?”, Ms Quinn said “No”.
During the police interview, Ms Quinn said continually that she and Mr Davis had been in a state of shock, panic, trauma and bewilderment for three days.
This state prevented them from contacting police she said as they booked into four different hotels, up to eight taxi or Uber rides, and two car trips with relatives who advised them to give themselves up.
Told that Mr Blake’s brother had offered to take them to police, Ms Quinn said they turned the offer down because “we were still freaking and really upset”.
Detective: ‘You weren’t really ready?”
Ms Quinn: “Were in total states of shock, anxiety and panic. Not thinking straight, couldn’t stop crying”.
Detective: “Was there a reason you thought you needed legal advice?”
Ms Quinn: “We weren’t ready. We were really shocked by what had happened, didn’t know what to do?”
Asked if the couple had seen news reports about Mr McKee, Ms Quinn said: “We’d heard the news yeah … that an incident had happened at Forest Lodge and that someone had died”.
Asked their reaction to that, Ms Quinn said she “was really upset … I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t know what to think” and that Mr Davis was “crying, really in shock”.
The trial before Justice Natalie Adams in the NSW Supreme Court was shown footage of Ms Quinn presented with images of nunchucks and a gold pistol which she described as “Blake’s toys”.
Crown prosecutor Christopher Taylor tendered in the court four actual swords and a large knife found at Mr Blake’s premises by police on the night of the day Mr McKee died.
During the later part of Ms Quinn’s police interview played to the court on Tuesday, she was shown images of herself and Mr Blake at the first hotel they booked after the incident.
Ms Quinn had earlier told police that her boyfriend had been bleeding and struggling to maintain his balance after the knuckleduster strike to his left eye by Mr McKee.
Shown a still photograph from CCTV of herself and Mr Blake in the elevator of the Adina Hotel in the Sydney CBD at 3.41pm on August 10, 2018.
Detective: “Is there anything you want to say about how he appears I that still? Can you see any blood in that photo?”.
Ms Quinn: “No it’s not a very clear photo and he’s wearing sunglasses so you can’t see his eye … he told me he was having trouble seeing”.
Ms Quinn said the couple didn’t stay at the Adina, leaving after a short time and then going to Hornsby where Mr Blake had a friend, Craig, who advised them to go to police.
She said they had planned to go to Hornsby Hospital to have Mr Davis’s eye treated, but hadn’t because “we were just in such a panic … both of us were in such a state of hysterics”.
Ms Quinn could not tell police how long they were at Craig’s place, where it was, who called a taxi to the next stop at Pennant Hills, or from where the taxi was taken.
“I can’t remember … sorry … I was in such a state,” she said.
Mr Blake and Ms Quinn then went to the Waldorf hotel at Pennant Hills in northwestern Sydney, where they’d spent the night “like pacing around and just crying didn’t know what to do”.
Ms Quinn did concede that during that evening she and Mr Blake had in fact gone by taxi to Leichhardt in innerwestern Sydney where he had an office.
She had she had felt “traumatised” and had a cigarette in the car park as Mr Blake went to search for phone chargers.
She agreed that on the next day she had booked a room for them at the Novotel in Baulkham Hills, although she had no memory of what suburb it was in, and an appointment with a lawyer was made.
After staying there, the couple had booked into a hostel in inner city Sydney where they had stayed “until we could go the meeting with the lawyer”.
Detectives showed Ms Quinn a photograph of the deceased Mr McKee, which she did not recognise.
She agreed with police, who said they had located cannabis in glass jars at Mr Blake’s place, that “sometimes I keep it in glass jars”.
Detective: “For your own use rather than supply?”. Ms Quinn: “Yeah”.
The trial continues.
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