Murder-accused Sunshine Coast teen pleads not guilty over death of mother’s partner

A Sunshine Coast teen facing trial for murder after allegedly slashing and stabbing his mum’s partner 35 times, killing him, was heard saying “he deserved it” moments after, a jury has heard.

The Sunshine Coast boy was 16 at the time of the alleged stabbing in September, 2022.

A Sunshine Coast teen facing trial for murder after allegedly slashing and stabbing his mum’s partner 35 times, killing him, was heard saying “he deserved it” moments after, a jury has heard.

The boy, who was 16 at the time, was heard telling his mother “he would have killed us” and “you weren’t safe” on the night of September 7, 2022, shortly after he stabbed the deceased, 42, to death at their Baringa home.

Now 18, the boy pleaded not guilty to murder at Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday.

The jury was told on day one of the boy’s trial how the deceased had been “like a father” to him, and had been observed on seemingly friendly terms with him throughout the day on September 7.

Later that night however, the boy’s mother had woken to the sound of her son shouting, and came upon him in the kitchen appearing to be “wrestling” with the deceased, the jury was told.

Crown prosecutor Rebecca Marks told members of jury they would hear the mother testify throughout the trial that her son told her something like “he deserved it” and that he apologised before telling her “I shanked him”.

“She’ll explain how she heard him say ‘I’m scared, (the deceased) tried to get me to go into the car with him’ and something along the lines of ‘he was going to kill me, he was going to kill me’,” Ms Marks said.

The jury was told the boy had been overheard screaming “he never loved us, he only loved you” and “how could you love that piece of s**t” at his mother.

Ms Marks said paramedics would recount how the boy greeted them with blood on his hands when they arrived and said “hurry up he’s bleeding out”.

The boy was overheard saying “what have I done” and putting his head in his hands, before later telling his mum “he would have killed us. You weren’t safe,” she said.

Ms Marks said the jury would also hear testimony throughout the trial from a neighbour who was woken about 11.30pm by a “loud commotion” and a male voice yelling what sounded like “you dirty dog, you dirty dog” and “how could you”.

The neighbour had then heard loud bangs which sounded like someone punching the walls and a woman’s “cries of grief,” she said.

Ms Marks said there would be no dispute that the boy had killed the deceased.

“The issue in the trial really centres around whether you consider that when he stabbed (the deceased) that night, over and over again to those vulnerable areas on his body – the chest and the abdomen and the back – he intended to kill him or cause him grievous bodily harm.

“And that when he did so he did not have any lawful authorisation, justification, or excuse for doing so.”

Ms Marks hoisted a 23cm Colombia-branded folding knife in the air as she addressed the jury in her opening submissions, saying there was no dispute it was the weapon used to kill the deceased

She told the jury the knife was used to inflict 35 wounds to the deceased’s torso and upper limbs, including 15 stab wounds and 20 incised wounds.

Ms Marks said two stab wounds had “penetrated to the heart” and would have quickly caused cessation of the heartbeat and death.

The mother’s partner was declared dead at 11.58pm that night, the jury was told.

The boy’s mother testified on Monday afternoon that she and her partner had argued at times about his drinking.

“He’d just start acting different … the mood would change,” she said.

The mother agreed, when prompted by defence barrister Charlotte Smith, that the frequency and amount he drank was the main thing they had argued about - but they had tried not to argue in front of the children.

She had also voiced suspicions he may have been cheating, the mother said.

The jury was told the deceased drank a six pack of beers and quarter of a bottle of whisky on the night of September 7.

But he didn’t appear drunk and there had been no argument between them that night, the court heard.

The mother told the court her partner had said he was going to go out to get more alcohol as she went to bed and “said he was going to talk to (her son)”.

The next thing she said she remembered was “waking up to yelling”.

“I jumped out of bed... They were, well it looked like wrestling, pressed up against each other,” she told the jury.

Ms Marks asked if she could see anything in anyone’s hands or arms, and she replied “no”.

She said she remembered her son “jumping around, crying, yelling” and saying “he deserved it, he deserved it ... he was trying to kill me”.

“He was just saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said.

“I was trying to find out what had happened ... He said something to the effect that he shanked him.”

The mother said her son continued “saying the same things” as she called triple-0 and started attempting CPR on her partner.

The triple-0 call was played to the jury, in which the operator could be heard coaching the mother, who was audibly emotional, through CPR repeating “1, 2, 3, 4” as she waited for paramedics to arrive.

Ms Marks confirmed with the mother that she had been speaking with her son at times throughout the call, and asked if she remembered what he had been saying.

“At one part he was just crying and saying he’s gone, he’s gone,” the mother recounted.

The mother told the jury she had thought her son had been drinking that night when she talked to him.

“I could smell it, I could tell. It wasn’t normal for (him),” she said.

The jury was told the boy had been known to use cannabis, but not to drink alcohol.

Ms Marks had told the jury during her opening submissions that the boy’s breath alcohol content, measured in the early hours of September 8, returned as 0.037.

He had also had THC in his system, she said.

The trial is expected to continue for two weeks and will resume on Tuesday morning.

Originally published as Murder-accused Sunshine Coast teen pleads not guilty over death of mother’s partner