Spurned lover stabbed his sleeping ex to death because she was seeing another man
A SPURNED lover knifed his sleeping ex-wife to death because she was seeing another man.
Jealous James Fredes, 60, stabbed Erana Nahu, 43, with a 14-inch blade in her own bed.
Fredes flew into a jealous rage and knifed her in the back after he rejected his advances and elbowed him in Sydney, Australia.
A court heard how the killer “snapped” 48 hours after finding out his ex-partner was seeing another man.
Fredes told detectives: “She totally refused me, turned around, elbowed me in the stomach and then something snapped in me”.
As Nahu screamed in agony, she woke her cousin, Potaua Roberts who also lived in the house.
When Roberts entered the room, she found the knife stuck to her cousin’s back and Fredes crying over her saying: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Fredes, who split from Nahu 18 months earlier, was jailed for 17 years at the New South Wales Supreme Court on Thursday.
The judge, Justice Hidden said: “This offence was clearly unplanned and, indeed, impulsive.
“It involved one deliberate act of stabbing, albeit with considerable force.”
The couple had been together for 14 years.
They still shared a home together although they had split up 18 months before the killing.
According to court documents, around 1 am on October 11, 2018, Fredes had attempted to “initiate intimacy” when he walked into Nahu’s room and laid down on her bed.
According to police, she rejected his moves and elbowed him to get away.
He is then reported to have gone to the kitchen to pick up a knife and returned to his ex’s room.
Police say he stood in the room for 20 seconds before driving the knife into the back of Nahu.
When emergency responders arrived at the scene, they found Nahu with wounds inflicted by a knife including defensive wounds on her arms and hands.
At 2:30 am, she was pronounced dead, according to news.com.au.
Fredes confessed to police officers at the scene saying he was jealous that Nahu was “having an affair with somebody else”.
When he was taken to Campbelltown Police Station, he told investigators he had “really needed” intimacy and was rejected by his former lover.
According to him, he told her: “I know you’re getting it but what about me, you know?”
He told them: “She said ‘no more with you’. I thought why? Why no more with me?
“I’m doing chores at home and everything. It’s a big piece of land and I do the lawn mowing as well.”
In February this year, Fredes pleaded guilty to the crime.
The victim’s brother, Pepe Nahu-Roberts paid an emotional tribute to his sister via video link saying her death will be “etched in his memory for the rest of my life”.
Detailing the grief of his mother, he said: “I will never forget the crying of a mother for her baby, not something I ever want to hear again in my life… you don’t only hear it, you feel it.”
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He insisted that her sister’s murder was “calculated”.
“The life of my sister was not taken by a crazy or abused person… the person knew what they were doing, whatever the motivation was,” he said.
Defence lawyer for the accused argued that he was remorseful and presented a psychologist’s report which claimed Fredes suffered from borderline personality disorder which impaired his judgement.
