Joshua Higgins has denied he was paranoid and hearing things the night he stabbed his drinking buddy Jae-Ho Oh multiple times.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The accused murderer was cross-examined by prosecutors on Thursday as his weeks-long trial drew closer to an end.
The Crown case is that 32-year-old was coming down off ice, very drunk and had barely slept for 60 hours when he stabbed Mr Oh in a bloody attack early on March 11, 2019.
Mr Higgins has pleaded not guilty to murder.
The man had been kicked out of home and was staying at Mr Oh's Gungahlin townhouse.
He arrived on the Saturday night and said he spent hours watching pornography.
He said that night Mr Oh had come in and out of the bedroom several times.
They spent the Sunday drinking together all day.
Mr Higgins has told the jury how that night he woke to Mr Oh on top of him and his own penis exposed before confronting him about what had happened.
Mr Oh ran to the kitchen and Mr Higgins, who has been diagnosed with PTSD, said he panicked when he saw him return with a knife.
They fought and Mr Higgins stabbed Mr Oh.
A key question for the jury will be what effect the drugs and alcohol, and his mental health, had on his actions that night.
Mr Higgins admitted he seemed very drunk in an audio recording made by police shortly after the stabbing.
In the recording, he talks about hearing possums and fruit bats, and footsteps outside the window.
He also says he was being stalked and had been stalked for a long time and that he was "tripping out".
Later at the watch house, he tells officers he was "mentally unstable" and needed to go to a mental health ward, that he "didn't know what the f--- was going on".
He also told police in an interview he had been "cracked out".
But questioned by Crown prosecutor Trent Hickey, Mr Higgins denied he was paranoid or delusional that night.
He said he had heard possums and footsteps.
He also denied he was in a similar state to a drug-induced psychosis he experienced in 2018, where he thought people were after him and had called police.
He said that time he hadn't slept for "several weeks".
I was just trying to survive and get out of there.
- Accused-murderer Joshua Higgins
He refused to allow for the possibility that he had got the night of the stabbing all wrong.
"I'll never forget him coming at me with a knife," he said.
"In the end I lost control.
"I was just trying to survive and get out of there."
In cross-examination, Mr Higgins also agreed that his own injuries from the night were trivial.
The trial continues before Justice John Burns.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark canberratimes.com.au
- Download our app
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram