Coroner finds psychologist should have asked James Stoneham question to prevent death

ADRIANA Donato should never have got in her ex-boyfriend’s car. But she didn’t know about the knife and his secret plot to kill her. Others did.

ADRIANA Donato should never have got in her ex-boyfriend’s car.

But she didn’t know about the knife and his secret plot to kill her. Others did.

The bubbly 20-year-old’s relationship with James Stoneham had ended a year earlier, but on August 23, 2012, he turned up to a party and asked a friend to convince Ms Donato to talk to him.

He’d been suffering severe depression since the break-up and had tried to take his life a number of times.

This was a man Ms Donato had loved. She never expected to be part of a sick and sinister plan, so she left the party with him.

Stoneham drove Ms Donato to the deserted Alberfeldie Reserve, in Melbourne’s northwest.

The young woman’s phone began to ring. On the other end was a friend checking if Ms Donato was OK — she wasn’t.

“Nup, I’m scared. He has a knife,” Ms Donato replied to her friend.

Stoneham then struck and stabbed her in the neck, leaving her to die in a pool of her own blood.

After laying with her dead body, Stoneham called a friend and said he’d done it.

Adriana Donato had plans to travel before her death.

Adriana Donato was not warned about James Stoneham.

THE SIMPLE QUESTION

Days before Ms Donato’s death, Stoneham — the son of Alan Stoneham, a former VFL footballer — sent a chilling text message to a friend that said “I was planning to kill her tonight”.

He had spoken brazenly of his plot to kill his ex-girlfriend and even showed a friend his knife.

After the high school sweethearts broke up, Stoneham began seeing a psychologist to deal with his severe depression. Fairfax Media reported coroner Peter White found Stoneham had hatched the murder and the psychologist could have possibly prevented the death with a simple question.

Stoneham saw clinical psychologist Caroline Gregory 14 times in the five months that led up to Ms Donato’s death. He even saw her the day before his fatal attack on his ex-girlfriend.

In his findings, the coroner said Dr Gregory was aware Stoneham was angry, but failed to ask who he was angry at or who he wanted to hurt.

The coroner said the psychologist could have told police Ms Donato was at risk if she knew the answers to the questions.

According to the ABC, the coroner said the psychologist should have asked about Ms Donato when Stoneham shared thoughts of violence and harming an unnamed person.

In 2015, Dr Gregory told an inquest into Ms Donato’s death she didn’t think Stoneham would harm another person and would have contacted police if she thought otherwise.

James Stoneham leaves the Supreme court after pleading guilty to murdering his ex-girlfriend. Picture: Jake Nowakowski.

CHILLING INTERNET SEARCH

In 2013, Stoneham was jailed for 19 years for the killing of Ms Donato.

ABC reported Stoneham had searched “murder”, “Australian law” and “chloroform” on the internet and as well as how to break into homes and places to buy knives in the lead up to the murder, a Supreme Court trial heard.

The high school sweethearts had a chaotic relationship and after her murder it was revealed Ms Donato wrote in her diary about how Stoneham wanted to control her life.

Ms Donato’s devastated family believes she would still be alive if people took Stoneham’s threats to murder his ex-girlfriend more seriously.

Ms Donato’s mother Grace told the ABC her daughter would never have stepped into the car with Stoneham if she knew what he was capable of.

“If we knew the situation it would be completely different,” she said.

Right before her death Ms Donato had planned the adventure of a lifetime to Italy, where she was going to do a language course before meeting her best friend in Berlin.

Adriana Donato died in 2012.

Adriana Donato was brutally murdered.