Freedom Mona Maunsell Anderson loses appeal over stabbing murder of Nicholas Braid

A woman who murdered a law graduate in a “senseless” act of violence on the Gold Coast has lost her appeal.

Pictures of the stabbing murder scene out the front of the Beachcomer Hotel in Hanlon Street, Surfers Paradise. Picture: Shiloh Payne

A woman who murdered a law graduate in a “senseless” act of violence on the Gold Coast has lost her appeal.

Freedom Mona Maunsell Anderson, 23, fatally stabbed Nicholas Braid outside a Surfers Paradise resort in April 2020.

The 23-year-old killer was found guilty of murder by a jury following a trial in Brisbane’s Supreme Court in 2023.

Anderson, who was sentenced to the mandatory life imprisonment, had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter on the first day of trial.

The trial heard Anderson stabbed the 35-year-old Mr Braid in a bizarre encounter outside a Gold Coast hotel on April 21, 2020.

The New Zealand national made no attempts to help her victim and fled the scene.

Freedom Mona Maunsell Anderson. Picture: Facebook

Mr Braid’s aorta was punctured in the knife attack and he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at hospital.

Anderson told an undercover police officer, who had been placed in the watch-house with her, that she thought Mr Braid had lied to her about his name in a meeting prior to the stabbing.

The recording of the conversation with the undercover cop was played to the jury.

Anderson appealed her conviction earlier this year arguing the jury should never have been played a covert recording with an undercover cop.

Nicholas Braid. Picture: Supplied

“The tape is so unreliable it should never have been received into evidence,” barrister Damain Walsh, told the Court of Appeal in February.

“It is so highly prejudicial.”

But on Friday the court dismissed the appeal.

“The fairness of the trial has not been put in question,” Justice John Bond said in the court’s decision.

“No miscarriage of justice is demonstrated.”

His finding was supported by Justices Peter Flanagan and Debra Mullins, who is president of the appeal court.

Originally published as Freedom Mona Maunsell Anderson loses appeal over stabbing murder of Nicholas Braid