A woman accused of stabbing a man to death has described the night it happened as a “drunken blur” with a “couple of knives thrown in”.
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However, hours later a jury heard a conflicting account of what led to the death of Aaron Matthew Monaco.
Belinda Leone Colbran has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 41-year-old, who died after being stabbed five times on the evening of November 4, 2016.
During a police interview conducted with Ms Colbran the following morning, the 41-year-old said she had gone to a unit on Parua Road at Newnham to confront Mr Monaco.
She said she was angry about how he had been treating her partner, Nathan Smith, who also lived in the unit.
When asked by police if she was responsible for killing Mr Monaco, she replied “yes”.
“I sat there, talked to him, questioned him and then I stabbed him,” she said.
The interview was played to a jury during the sixth day of the Launceston Supreme Court trial before Justice Gregory Geason on Wednesday.
Later in the day Mr Smith took the stand and said it was he who stabbed Mr Monaco, and not Ms Colbran.
He told the court he picked up a knife after Mr Monaco confronted him in the unit living room and was also holding a knife.
Mr Smith said he threw Mr Monaco down and continued to stab him in the back and side while in a “blur of rage”.
“By the time I gathered my thoughts, Belinda was already gone,” he said.
Mr Monaco was pronounced dead at Launceston General Hospital, hours after being found bleeding from his wounds.
Mr Smith told the court Mr Monaco had been staying with him temporarily at the Parua Road unit, but that he had asked him to leave and was not expecting him to be there on the evening of November 4.
He said he and Ms Colbran caught a taxi to the unit because he had been staying at her place in Ravenswood for a number of days and “just wanted to go home”.
When asked by Crown Prosecutor John Ransom where Ms Colbran was during his altercation was with Mr Monaco, he said the last he remembered was her on the couch.
“I can’t say what she did or didn’t do,” Mr Smith said.
“She never came into my vision.”
Mr Smith told the court he later left the unit, cutting through the Mowbray Golf Course and catching a taxi to Youngtown, before returning to Ms Colbran’s Ravenswood unit the following morning.
However, in her police interview Ms Colbran said she had gone to the Parua Road unit with the intention of threatening and stabbing Mr Monaco, but not killing him.
When asked if she took anything with her she said – “well a knife, obviously”.
She told police she could not remember how she got to Mr Monaco’s unit, but she remembered stabbing him “maybe a couple of times in the back, chest, neck”.
She said she could remember Mr Monaco running out of the unit screaming.
When asked by police if she was protecting Mr Smith, she said “probably”, but said she was not lying about stabbing Mr Monaco.
“I feel remorseful. I didn’t mean for that to happen and it should never have happened,” she said.
The trial will continue on Thursday.
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Jessica Willard
Being a health reporter to me is about more than just reporting the problems. It's about asking why they are happening in the first place and what needs to change to fix it.
Being a health reporter to me is about more than just reporting the problems. It's about asking why they are happening in the first place and what needs to change to fix it.
