Haunting CCTV footage recorded shouts of ‘I’ll kill you’ and ‘stop’ moments before a mother-of-two was stabbed to death on her doorstep.
Emma Lovell, 41, was stabbed on the lawn outside her home in North Lakes, north of Brisbane, after midnight on December 27, 2022, during a home invasion carried out by two 17-year-old boys.
Security cameras captured the moment the teenagers argued with Ms Lovell and her husband Lee in the family’s driveway before one of the teenagers stabbed her in the chest and fatally pierced her heart.
The same boy also stabbed and kicked Mr Lovell before they fled.
The 17-year-old who inflicted the fatal wound pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
However, his co-accused was acquitted of murder and instead convicted of burglary and assault occasioning bodily harm in company at a judge-only trial in October.
He will be sentenced in the High Court in Brisbane on Wednesday afternoon.
In his sentencing, Supreme Court Justice Michael Copley revealed that the words “I’ll kill you” could be heard in the audio from the CCTV footage of the incident, along with the word “stop” being repeatedly shouted, reported The Australian.
Emma Lovell (pictured), 41, was stabbed on the lawn outside her home in North Lakes, north of Brisbane, after midnight on December 27, 2022, during a home invasion carried out by two 17-year-old boys
Security cameras captured the moment both teenagers got into an argument with Mrs Lovell and her husband Lee (pictured) in the family’s driveway before one of the teenagers stabbed her in the chest and fatally pierced her heart. The same boy also stabbed and kicked Mr Lovell before they fled
The legal team representing the child who failed to deliver the fatal blow argued that it was their client who shouted “stop.”
Mr and Mrs Lovell, both British, moved to Australia from Ipswich, Suffolk, in 2011 after first visiting the country in 2002.
In his sentencing remarks in the original trial, Judge Tom Sullivan said Mrs Lovell was described as ‘an energetic and much-loved mother, wife, daughter and sister’.
The court heard the couple had tried to fend off the intruders after being woken by their dogs barking at around 11.30pm.
Mr Lovell was also stabbed during a ‘physical struggle right outside the front door’ which then moved to the front garden where his wife was fatally stabbed.
The mother of two, originally from Hasketon, moved to Australia to have a “better life” for her family, according to her brother David Angel, who spoke to the BBC.
The couple and their daughters Kassie and Scarlett, then 14 and 15, celebrated Christmas Day 2022 by eating a special meal on the local beach.
Her husband wrote in a Facebook post on Christmas Day 2022, the day before she died: “So for the first time in eleven years we spent Christmas Day at the beach and even managed to cook some bacon and eggs! ‘
Mrs Lovell, her husband and their two daughters, Kassie and Scarlett, then 14 and 15 (pictured), celebrated Christmas Day 2022 by eating a special meal on the local beach.
‘I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas day with loved ones and friends.’
Hours after the post – when the family had returned to their bungalow in North Lakes, Brisbane – they woke up to find intruders in the hallway.
Mr Lovell had just forced one of the men out of the house when he heard his daughter say ‘mummy is bleeding’.
“I remember thinking at the time, ‘I can’t die, I can’t leave the children orphans,’” he recalls.
Mr Lovell called his late wife “beautiful, wonderful” and said he often burst into tears over the pain of losing her.
“Emma was the glue in our family, she was funny, smart, so caring and would do anything for anyone,” Lovell previously told Daily Mail Australia.
“She died trying to protect me and our family.”