The mother of a man fatally stabbed by his mate at a Boxing Day barbecue has told how he stumbled towards her clutching his neck and said: "He's cut my throat Mum".
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Bev O'Brien told the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday her son, Steven, 50, had been laughing and drinking beer and home-made schnapps with his killer and another friend when she went to bed in a motorhome parked outside his Newcastle house.
Mrs O'Brien said her second husband, Gordon, joined her at about 10.30pm when she heard yelling and decided to go out to see what was happening. They had been visiting her son and his family over the Christmas period.
She said as her son stumbled towards her, all she could see was blood.
"He said: 'He's cut my throat Mum'," an emotional Mrs O'Brien told the court.
Asked how she was feeling at that stage, she replied: "I was screaming".
Mrs O'Brien said as her son began to pass out, she called an ambulance and they told her to get a towel to try to stop the bleeding.
Her husband was giving Mr O'Brien CPR as she talked to the ambulance officer on the phone before the killer, Shaun Garry Johnson, came over and said: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry".
"He (Johnson) kept repeating that so that it would be on the ambulance recording," Mrs O'Brien said.
She had never met Johnson before that night.
Johnson, 38, of Coopernook, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr O'Brien in suburban Mayfield on December 26, 2019, but guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, claiming excessive self-defence.
Mrs O'Brien told Johnson to go away after he kept saying sorry as she tried to save her son's life.
"I could hear a gurgling noise," she said.
"Gordon said 'I think he's gone'. I said 'no'."
Mrs O'Brien began giving her son CPR to try to keep him alive until paramedics arrived.
Crown prosecutor Neil Adams SC had earlier told the judge-alone trial how the victim died after having his throat slashed, cutting the jugular vein.
The knife wound measured 22cm long and 4.4cm wide.
Mr O'Brien had been arguing with Johnson before grabbing him by the shirt and telling him to leave when Johnson stabbed him in the neck.
Neighbour Leonie Burnham said she heard laughing and singing coming from Steven's house before she went to bed and suddenly heard a woman's "heartbreaking wailing".
Mr Adams said a black folding knife, which could have been the weapon used to stab Mr O'Brien, was found under a nearby bridge.
Johnson was later seen trying to push his car down the street to get it started when the first police car arrived at the scene.
An autopsy found the cause of Mr O'Brien's death was one stab wound to the left side of his neck.
The trial before Justice Richard Cavanagh continues on Wednesday.
Australian Associated Press
