Abuk Akek came to Australia to escape war-ravaged Sudan, only to be murdered in her Melton unit by the man she had a son with.
Ms Akek, 20, an aspiring law student, was stabbed four times in her Unitt Street, Melton home on March 13 following an argument with former partner Makeny Banek, whom she had separated from a month earlier.
Banek, 24, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to murder, and documents released by Melbourne Magistrates Court detail a history of assaulting Ms Akek and his admission he killed her and then placed a white rose next to her body on the bed.
“I snapped, I used a knife and my fists. I love her very much but she did not love me,” he said when arrested at a friend’s house hours after the murder.
Later, in a police interview he said: “When I snapped I decide (sic) to beat her up and kill her. In my mind it just said, ‘Kill her you know’. So I just did or try (sic). Like, ‘I don’t know if you live or not’.”
He told police he thought he could kill Ms Akek by punching her, but that plan did not work.
“So I thought maybe a knife will work. So I grabbed a knife,” he said.
About three weeks before her death, a friend of Ms Akek’s was with her when Banek allegedly told the friend: “I could kill her right now, bash her to death, but you are here.”
The friend told police she urged Ms Akek to move far away from Banek, but she said she wanted him to have a relationship with their two-year-old son.
According to a prosecution summary tendered to court, on August 22, 2014, Banek woke Ms Akek and began punching her.
An intervention order was taken out against him 11 days later – two more orders were served in the following months – but on September 6, 2014, he woke her by biting the side of her face. He also tried to choke her and threatened to kill her.
Banek, who is over two metres tall, came to Australia as a refugee from Kenya, the court documents state. He and Ms Akek met in 2012.
A group of Ms Akek’s supporters were in court on Tuesday.
Defence counsel Tim McCulloch tried to prevent the release of court documents to the media, by arguing reporting some parts of the case could prejudice opinion against his client.
But Magistrate Peter Reardon said a Supreme Court judge would not be swayed by any reporting, and said it was important the public saw courts to be open.
Banek was remanded to appear at a directions hearing in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
By Adam Cooper, The Age
