Steven Dean Michael Walker-Ely appeals Birdsall Fa’apepele murder conviction

A killer who brutally stabbed a young regional Qld footballer 42 times in a frenzied attack has challenged the conviction.

Police in a vacant area off the Bruce Highway at Paget about 100m from The Park caravan park where a 25-year-old man's body was found about 3am on Tuesday, December 14, 2021. Picture: Matthew Forrest

A man jailed for life over the brutal stabbing murder of a Mackay football player is fighting the conviction with his case listed for appeal next month.

Steven Dean Michael Walker-Ely was found guilty in June 2024 of murdering 25-year-old Mackay Magpies player Birdsall Fa’apepele in a brutal and relentless knife attack at Paget on December 14, 2021.

Mr Fa’apepele died after suffering 42 stab wounds, some reaching between 8-12cm in depth, that penetrated his lungs, liver, spinal cord, slashed major veins and fractured bones.

Mackay Supreme Court heard Walker-Ely and Mr Fa’apele had been amical while the pair were at the former’s caravan at The Park in Paget before they clashed.

Walker-Ely chased Mr Fa’apepele for 660m from the caravan to a vacant block off Broadsound Rd where the stabbing frenzy occurred.

Steven Dean Michael Walker-Ely who was found guilty of murdering Birdsall Fa'apepele has appealed the conviction.

Walker-Ely had pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to murder, alleging he had been provoked into losing self-control.
He gave evidence during the one-week trial claiming Mr Fa’apepele had been the initial aggressor, by first attempting to rape him and then threatening to come back and kill him.

The seven-man, five-woman jury deliberated for almost four hours before delivering their guilty verdict.

Mackay Magpies player Birdsall Fa'apepele who was was killed on December 14, 2021 near a Paget caravan park.

“I’ve had more than 21,648 excruciating hours to think about what I could possibly say to the person responsible for taking my partner, my soulmate and the future I could have had with Birdsall ,” Mr Fa’apepele’s partner of almost four years Kailey Prouse said at the time, reading her victim impact statement in court.

“I still have no words, just an unimaginable amount of hate in my heart for you.”

In her victim impact statement, his mother Mafa Fa’apepele wrote, “The image of my son’s face as he was probably taking his last breath still haunts me. Every time I think about how helpless he was and how I wasn’t there to protect him makes me so sick.”

Walker-Ely was jailed for life, and he appealed against the conviction in July 2024.

The matter is listed for hearing in Brisbane in late August.

Originally published as Steven Dean Michael Walker-Ely appeals Birdsall Fa’apepele murder conviction