Eva Whitecross faces court over the death of Sunbury woman Rachel Tyquin
AFTER fatally stabbing her neighbour, Eva Whitecross had a shower, made herself a coffee and texted her husband before going to police.
AFTER fatally stabbing her neighbour 16 times, Melbourne woman Eva Whitecross went inside, had a shower, made herself a coffee and texted her husband before going to police, a court has heard.
Whitecross handed herself in after she attacked Rachel Tyquin, 44, over a long running parking dispute with a kitchen knife while Whitecross was out walking her dogs early on April 16.
Whitecross, 54, admits she overreacted, but has pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of mental impairment.
Ms Tyquin’s body was discovered with 16 stab wounds to her neck and chest on the footpath of the suburban Sunbury street in Melbourne’s northwest where both women lived.
Whitecross told police she carried a knife with her when she walked her dogs because larger dogs sometimes “rushed” her pets, and she stabbed Ms Tyquin because she became enraged.
“She stepped towards me and I felt her hand on my face,” Whitecross told police, according to documents tendered in court.
“I don’t think it was a fist, it was a hand and I reacted very badly. Once I’d been struck, I get (sic) enraged and I felt — and I felt in my bag, which I carry every morning.
“I stabbed her I believe in the abdomen.”
Whitecross said Tyquin was “smug”.
“My reaction was an over-reaction,” she said.
Whitecross appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court via videolink on Tuesday where she formally pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder.
The documents allege she had been abusing Ms Tyquin for years, stopping briefly during a period when Ms Tyquin took out an intervention order.
The acrimony began when Ms Tyquin started seeing personal training and remedial massage clients at her house.
They would park outside the house Whitecross shared with her husband, according to the court documents.
Police say Whitecross would yell abuse at Ms Tyquin, calling her a “slut”, a “moll” and a “whore”.
Tyquin had given up trying to fight Whitecross and had just accepted the abuse as part of her daily life.
The personal trainer and mother was engaged to be married, and spent her spare time raising money for charities, including the cancer council.
Whitecross will face a directions hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday.
Ms Tyquin’s fiance, Mark Lofts said after her death he would give anything to have her back in his arms.
“You will be in my head and heart forever babe and I miss you terribly!” He wrote in a tribute on Facebook.
“There is an enormous hole in my heart now and I don’t think it could ever be filled, you just had so much passion for everything you did and I will miss that every day for the rest of my life.”