Craig McDermott jailed for 25 years for killing ex-partner Fiona Warzywoda
A MAN who told his ex-partner she was f***ed before murdering her in a stabbing frenzy has been jailed for 25 years.
A MAN who told his ex-girlfriend she was “f***ed” before murdering her in a stabbing frenzy has been jailed for 25 years.
Craig McDermott was found guilty in May of murdering his ex-partner Fiona Warzywoda in 2014 after stabbing the mother of his four children outside a shopping centre in Sunshine in Melbourne’s west.
The pair had just left a nearby court that finalised an order banning McDermott from approaching Ms Warzywoda.
He had been with his partner for 18 years and McDermott’s Victorian Supreme Court trial heard he ran away from the scene after killing his partner because he was “shocked and scared”.
He claimed self defence and said Ms Warzywoda came at him with a knife and he put his hand out to block it, before a struggle ensued.
“I don’t know how I got the knife off of her,” McDermott told the court.
The jury rejected that version of events and his self defence claim.
The court heard Ms Warzywoda was stabbed six times on April 16 2014, two months after the pair separated.
The day before she died, Ms Warzywoda went to the Federal Circuit Court and told of McDemott’s threats to kill her.
McDermott did not go into the court and paced around it with his brother, the Herald Sun reported.
On April 16, 2014, the pair attended Sunshine Magistrates Court, where Ms Warzywoda told court staff McDermott had approached her and said “you’re f***ed”.
After the hearing, she went to visit her solicitor.
McDermott bought a kitchen knife from a discount store before sitting at a cafe to keep watch for his ex-partner.
As she returned to her car outside a shopping centre, McDermott stabbed her to death.
In jailing McDermott for a minimum of 20 years, Victorian Supreme Court Justice Jane Dixon said McDermott committed a brazen and deadly attack on an unarmed woman.