Jury finds Portmoresbey “BJ” Cecil guilty of murder Sue Duffy

A son-in-law who unleashed a “ferocious, violent stabbing” on his ex-partner’s 71-year-old mother maintained a sullen facial expression as Queensland’s top judge sentenced him to life behind bars. VIDEO

The grieving daughter of a woman murdered by her son-in-law in a horrifically frenzied attack has told Queensland’s top judge her “life was spared by chance” as her mother was the one who suffered a “brutal death”.

A jury found Portmoresbey ‘BJ’ Cecil, 36, guilty of murdering his mother-in-law - beloved, cherished and inspirational grandmother, mother, wife and friend of many - Susan Margaret Duffy.

Sue was 71 years old and weighed just 63kg when her “beefy Kiwi” soon-to-be ex-son-in-law repeatedly stabbed her, resulting in 15 sharp force injuries, three of which were potentially fatal.

Sue Duffy with her daughter Debbie.

Her daughter Debbie found her mum’s fatally wounded body in the family home in West Street, Allenstown, after her best friend called her saying her ex-partner had just rocked up on her doorstep behaving erratically and saying something about pushing Sue.

Debbie, and her brother Gavin, bravely sat in the witness box on Thursday evening on the fourth day of Cecil’s murder trial, reading out their victim impact statement to the Supreme Court in Rockhampton, where their father, friends and loved ones sat in support, many sobbing as they described their much-loved mother and how her death has turned their family’s world inside out.

“Mum was my biggest cheerleader and role model in my life,” Debbie said.

“She was fierce, independent, confident and compassionate.

“Mum lit up every room she walked into. She had a warm and kind nature. People loved her.”

She said she felt “extremely fortunate to be standing today” living “an unfortunate reality”.

“My life was spared by chance,” Debbie said.

‘MUM SUFFERED A BRUTAL DEATH’

Sue Duffy's husband Dan, son Gavin and daughter Debbie outside Rockhampton court house after the man who murdered her, her former son-in-law Portmoresbey Cecil, by stabbing her to death in her West Street, Allenstown home, on August 21, 2022, was handed a Life sentence with a non-parole eligibility period of 20 years.

“Mum suffered a brutal death.

“I often think about how terrified she was.“

Gavin said the “intensity of the emotions stemming from this heinous act is overwhelming” and had left behind “tears of profound sorrow and tears of absolute seething anger”.

He said the death of his mother had left an irreplaceable void, shattered dreams and left him with “haunting nightmares of that afternoon”.

Sue Duffy with husband Dan and son Gavin who played rugby league for the Capras and Queensland Rangers.

“The profound impact of her absence reverberated through the lives of many,” Gavin said.

“The absence of any remorse from the perpetrator has only added to the burden.”

Chief Justice Helen Bowskill said the only penalty that could be imposed for murder was life imprisonment.

“You were in the midst of a dispute with your ex-wife,” she said.

“It seems you came back (from Mackay), perhaps irrationally, because you were annoyed that you couldn’t contact your son and couldn’t contact Ms Duffy and you resented the fact that she may be moving on with her life since your separation.”

Ms Bowskill said the first interaction Cecil had with Mrs Duffy when he arrived at West Street was the start of his irrational behaviour.

She said Mrs Duffy spoke to Cecil about the breakdown of his marriage and the arguments he was having with Debbie.

Ms Bowskill said Cecil said or did something that caused Mrs Duffy to become concerned and told him she was calling the police.

“This is a person she’d never been in an altercation with, never had a harsh word to say to you, so something that you did in that moment made her so concerned she said she was going to call the police,” she said to Cecil, who maintained a sullen facial expression throughout the trial and sentencing except when he shed a few tears as he was giving his version of what happened while he stabbed Mrs Duffy to death.

“Your response to that, a young man of 35, solid built man, was to punch her in the face with such force that she fell to the ground crying,” Justice Bowskill said.

‘YOU DID NOTHING TO HELP HER’

“You did nothing to help her in that situation. You left. You didn’t check if she was all right. “You didn’t call anybody. You didn’t say to someone ‘I’m out of control. I’ve got to get out of here. Can you help me?’ You just left.”

Justice Bowskill said it was unsurprising that Mrs Duffy would stand up, throw something at Cecil and say “how dare you hit me” after he returned unannounced.

She said Cecil’s claim Mrs Duffy attacked him “lacks credibility and is implausible”.

Sue Duffy was murdered by her former son-in-law Portmoresbey Cecil on August 21, 2022. He stabbed her in her West Street, Allenstown home, causing 15 sharp force injuries - three of which were fatal type.

“What happened next, as we know, was a ferocious, violent stabbing of this 71-year-old woman with a hunting knife you say you had purchased earlier that day,” Justice Bowskill said.

She declared 621 days presentence custody as time served on his life sentence and ordered a non-parole eligibility period of 20 years.

Cecil, a New Zealand-born Cook Islander, is likely to be deported back to New Zealand when he is released from Queensland custody.

Outside court, Gavin said the verdict was what the family and friends expected.

“We could only see it going one way,” Gavin said.

He said he felt “empty, but it’s a chapter we can close”.

Jury finds Cecil guilty within 40 minutes

A man who stabbed his mother-in-law to death at Rockhampton has been found guilty of her murder.

It took a jury 40 minutes to make the finding in Rockhampton Supreme Court on Thursday.

Portmoresbey “BJ” Cecil intentionally had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Sue Duffy but claimed he had not intended to kill her.

A sentence is expected to be handed down this afternoon.

More to come.

Knife “beefy Kiwi’ used designed to “dissect, dispatch humans”, trial told

A Rockhampton ‘beefy’ man who killed his 71-year-old, 63kg mother-in-law, by stabbing her 15 times, was provoked, a jury has been asked to accept.

Defence barrister Laura Reece told the jury during her closing address that provocation – a partial defence to murder – was the key element to whether or not Portmoresbey “BJ” Cecil intentionally killed Sue Duffy and therefore was guilty or not guilty of murder.

“He didn’t kill her because he had an issue with her or because there was any bad blood or ill feeling between them,” she said.

“He’s told you he didn’t intend to kill her or harm her.

“He killed her because in the throes of the marriage breakdown and state of emotional distress, in the midst of the confrontation, he lost his s—.”

Ms Reece said Mr Cecil had told the jury how he hadn’t slept well for months, was stressed, anxious about work, ongoing hurt and conflict from the break-up.

Mr Cecil had told the jury right before he started stabbing Mrs Duffy, she had come at him, attacked him and as he turned to leave, she hit him in the head with an unknown object and that was when he “lost his s—”.

Ms Reece gave the jury a possible explanation for why Mr Cecil did not tell Kasey Mitchell – the first person he saw immediately after the stabbing – the whole story of what happened at the West Street home moments earlier.

Portmoresbey Cecil posted on a social media account sometime between 2pm and 3pm the day he stabbed his mother-in-law Sue Duffy 15 times. During his Supreme Court trial in Rockhampton, the crown pointed out marks on Mr Cecil's lips on a screenshot of the video. A witness who saw Mr Cecil immediately after the stabbing has told the jury Mr Cecil had marks on his lip that looked like someone had punched his mouth and he looked like he had blood on his lip. Mr Cecil has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.

The jury heard during the trial that Mr Cecil told only Ms Mitchell he pushed Mrs Duffy.

Crown prosecutor Joshua Phillips accused Mr Cecil, under cross examination, of lying to Ms Mitchell by omission – leaving out the main event where he caused 15 sharp force injuries to Mrs Duffy’s body.

Ms Reece said her client had just killed her son’s grandmother and his son was there as he talked with Ms Mitchell.

“It’s true that he didn’t tell her the whole story,” she said.

“He knew he had to hand himself in.

“He knew he wouldn’t see him (son) for a very very long time.

“He knew he had done something dreadful, but he didn’t want his son to hate him.”

Ms Reece suggested there were “markers of truth” to Mr Cecil’s evidence including when he claimed he purchased a hunting knife on his way to Rockhampton, that he punched Mrs Duffy in the face and his claim he disposed of the knife and his jumper and about his other aftermath actions.

Mr Phillips said there were 14 reasons there could be “no reasonable doubt” that Mr Cecil was a murderer.

“We know he killed Sue Duffy,” he said.

“We know he used a hunting knife to do so.

“We know the knife had a big blade – about 15 centimetres in length, he said, with a handle about five centimetres.

“We know hunting knives are not butter knives.

“They exist for this reason: to hunt, dispatch and dissect human beings.

“We know the knife had a malicious purpose.”

“We know he (Mr Cecil) put the knife into Sue’s neck, shoulder, chest, abdomen, arm 15 times.

Sue Duffy was sadly allegedly murdered on Sunday August 21.

“We know he cleared the neck open, severing major veins – the neck of course being a notoriously fragile or vulnerable part of the body.

“We know it was a ferocious attack.

“We know the manner in which he used the knife – it was a stabbing motion, a forward deliberate thrust towards Sue’s 63 kilos, 71-year-old body.

“Not some blind slashing around.”

Mr Cecil physically demonstrated this to the jury while giving evidence yesterday.

“We know he pushed forward with his attack, pushed forward until she was pushed back onto the couch,” Mr Phillips said.

“We know he was in a rage and so angry.

“Those are words taken from his own evidence.”

Mr Phillips compared Mr Cecil’s memory of that weekend to that of some prosecution’s witnesses, including Mr Cecil’s now former business partner Terry Maui who “stridently and vehemently rejected” the suggestion Mr Cecil did not say to him during a call at 3.23pm on August 21, 2022, “I just smoked the b****”.

He said Mr Maui’s memory appeared to be “crystal clear” compared to Mr Cecil’s, which he described as low quality, unable to recall some things and “guessing” others during the three-hour cross examination of his evidence yesterday. Mr Phillips said if those were incontrovertible facts: “are they rationally compatible? … can they sensibly and logically reasonably exist or coincide with a killing that was “an unthinking Whoopsie daisy sort-of ‘didn’t mean to do it’ killing?

“We know that folks don’t call an unintentional killing ‘smoke the b****‘,” he said.

“We also know that folks don’t use it as a reason their ex-wife can ‘now stop playing their f — ing games’.”

To be found guilty of murder Mr Phillips explained the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt that at the time the knife was going in and out of Mrs Duffy’s body, driven by the “beefy Kiwi” who intended on killing or causing Mrs Duffy grievous bodily harm.

The jury has now

To buy time’: What knifeman says he did in 30 mins after stabbing

Earlier, the jury heard what Mr Cecil says he did in the 30 minutes between being seen by a friend immediately after he stabbed Mrs Duffy and arriving at a police station no more than 10 minutes' drive away.

Mrs Duffy had 15 knife-inflicted wounds – three of which were potentially fatal, the jury heard.

Mr Cecil took the stand on Wednesday in his murder trial in the Supreme Court in Rockhampton, where he gave his account of what happened on the weekend of August 20-21, 2022.

The jury had earlier heard evidence from Mr Cecil’s former wife Debbie’s best friend, Kasey Mitchell, who had provided accommodation to Mrs Duffy’s daughter Debbie and her son.

Ms Mitchell described Mr Cecil’s “erratic” behaviour when he turned up on her doorstep with “wet hair” and blood specks on his face.

Mr Cecil told the jury he “just drove around” after being at Ms Mitchell’s Agnes Street residence, “buying time” while he tried to reach his sister on the phone.

He said he recalled pulling up at a park somewhere between Ms Mitchell’s home and the TAFE campus at The Range.

Mr Cecil said he was walking around in the grass making calls when he threw the alleged murder weapon, and its sheath separately, into grass.

He had earlier claimed in his evidence he had purchased the knife at a service station while driving from Mackay back to Rockhampton.

Mr Cecil said he drove to the Fitzroy rugby league club near The Saleyards hotel and pulled over and this was where he allegedly discarded a hoodie he claims he had been wearing while stabbing Mrs Duffy.

“It was just trying to take it off,” he said.

“I thought that it might have blood on it.”

Mr Cecil said he drove towards the train station at one point, pulled over and pulled the magnetic decals off the side of his work ute “to buy more time”.

The jury heard Mr Cecil called his then business partner Tereapii “Terry” Maui at 3.25pm, telling him he had “just smoked the b—” and Mr Maui had to take care of his son, the business and the books.

Mr Cecil said he may have also called his brother-in-law in his attempts to track down his sister.

Crown prosecutor Joshua Phillips asked Mr Cecil, under cross examination, if at any time, after he “snapped” back into reality from seeing Mrs Duffy on the couch injured by Mr Cecil’s hand and handing himself into police at 3.45pm, did he think to call emergency services to provide aid to Mrs Duffy.

Mr Cecil said no.

“I was only thinking about my son,” he said.

Mr Cecil said he wanted to reach his sister to tell her that his son was ok.

Both the Crown and defence cases have closed and barristers will deliver closing addresses to the jury today before the jury deliberates.

‘Trying to attack me’: Son-in-law takes the stand

Defence barrister Laura Reece told the jury in Rockhampton Supreme Court Mr Cecil had driven to Mackay the afternoon of August 20 then returned to Rockhampton the afternoon of August 21.

She said on his way back, he stopped at a service station and purchased a hunting knife.

Ms Reece said Mr Cecil intended to use the hunting knife to intimidate his now former wife Debbie – Mrs Duffy’s daughter – but not harm anyone with it.

She said he does not recall making a Facebook Live video on the day of the stabbing or why.

Ms Reece said Mr Cecil went to the West Street address and Mrs Duffy started criticising Mr Cecil.

She said Mr Cecil claimed Mrs Duffy had not “interfered” in the relationship breakdown issues between himself and Debbie prior to this.

Mr Cecil claimed they argued and as Mrs Duffy went to call the police, he punched her in the face, Ms Reece said.

She said Mr Cecil insisted he left, but went back to check on her wellbeing.

Mr Cecil claimed when he got back Mrs Duffy threw something at him, saying “how dare you hit me”, Ms Reece said.

She said Mr Cecil claimed Mrs Duffy “started attacking him”, grabbing items to try to hit him.

Ms Reece said as he went to leave after a struggle between them, she hit him in the back of the head with an object.

“It hurt,” she said.

“He just lost his s**t.”

Ms Reece said Mr Cecil said he pushed Mrs Duffy back, grabbed the knife from his pocket and started stabbing her.

It comes after the jury heard from the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy and said Mrs Duffy could have died from any of three injuries inflicted on her.

Daniel Duffy and his daughter's best friend of 20 years Kasey Mitchell leaving Rockhampton court after giving evidence in the Supreme Court trial of Mr Duffy's former son-in-law Portmoresbey Cecil who has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter of Mr Duffy's wife, Susan Margaret Duffy, on August 21, 2022.

The jury was also shown a social media video, posted on the day Mrs Duffy died, which showed Mr Cecil in a car sporting what appeared to be a bloody lip.

A family friend, Kasey Mitchell, also told the trial she saw Mr Cecil that same afternoon and he was “very wet”, soaked in either blood or water and had what looked like blood spatter on his cheek.

Mr Cecil claimed in court on Tuesday Mrs Duffy had asked him to “be more amicable” about the separation with her daughter.

He claimed he replied that he had been “flexible” and started to walk into another room.

Under cross examination, Mr Cecil admitted he had not been flexible that weekend he stabbed Mrs Duffy, but he had been flexible previously by taking care of (their child) when Debbie had to work at night and taking him to Mackay for surgery.

Mr Cecil said the conversation continued in the lounge room where he told Mrs Duffy he was “not comfortable” with Debbie being in the Frenchville home (he and Debbie had purchased during their relationship) while he was away.

He claimed Mrs Duffy responded “it’s (Debbie’s) house too”.

He also claimed Mrs Duffy accused him of making her feel she “wasn’t a good enough grandmother” and he told her “it had nothing to do with her”.

Mr Cecil accused Debbie of “leaving me to die” when he attempted suicide.

Under further cross examination, Mr Cecil claimed he told Debbie about his suicidal thoughts prior to an earlier relationship break up and he had attempted to hang himself after she left.

“She didn’t do anything to stop it,” Mr Cecil said.

Crown prosecutor Joshua Phillips asked Mr Cecil what he expected Debbie to do to stop his suicide attempt to which he responded: “I don’t know”.

Mr Cecil said Mrs Duffy had never raised these issues with him before nor had she spoken in a loud voice previously.

“We (Mrs Duffy and Mr Cecil) had never really spoken that way to each other before,” Mr Cecil told the jury.

He claimed when he started arguing back, Mrs Duffy said she told him she was going to call the police.

“I struck her across the face … punched her,” Mr Cecil said.

“She fell to the ground.”

He claims that he “was just trying to get out of the situation” and left.

The court heard Mr Cecil then drove around the block but claimed he returned to check on Mrs Duffy after he had punched her.

Mr Cecil claimed when he got back to the house, Mrs Duffy threw something at him, saying “how dare you hit me”.

“She continued to walk toward me, trying to attack me,” he told the court.

Ms Reece said as her client went to leave following a struggle, Mrs Duffy hit him in the back of the head with an object.

The trial continues.

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Originally published as Jury finds Portmoresbey “BJ” Cecil guilty of murder Sue Duffy