Russell Lea stabbing: Annette Kiss’ tragically unlikely chain of events – before she was allegedly butchered with a monstrous array of weapons
A single mother of two was forced to move in with her alleged killer after she refused to pay a rent increase and her garage burned down when an e-bike exploded, details of her troubled life were revealed by neighbours.
Annette Kiss, 53, was reportedly stabbed to death by her new housemate Benjamin Art, 42, in their sharehouse in Russell Lea, western Sydney, on Thursday.
Mrs Kiss had only moved in with two others five weeks ago, before Art moved into the shed at the front of the property two weeks before the alleged murder.
Daily Mail Australia can now reveal that Kiss has been the subject of a series of shocking incidents at her former rental home in Strathfield.
Neighbours claim she was beaten up and hospitalised, that cars were regularly petrol bombed, that screams could be heard from inside and that police regularly visited the address.
A local resident said he thought he heard someone being raped in the house, but Mrs. Kiss had nothing to do with it.
In May, she was forced to leave her home, where she paid $760 a week, after objecting to a rent increase. She didn’t pay rent for 57 days until she owed the landlord $6,188.
The property was listed for rent again on Thursday for $850 per week, but with a $50 discount due to the scorched barn.
Annette Kiss, 55, was murdered by her new roommate on Thursday morning
Benjamin Art (in the photo) is accused of stabbing Annette Kiss to death with a sword
Pictured: The house where Annette Kiss was allegedly murdered. Neighbors said Benjamin Art lived in the barn, and Mrs. Kiss used the fire drum on the barn to burn things
A neighbor said the house was ‘destroyed’ by the time she left the property and that Mrs Kiss had been a hoarder who left the driveway ‘full of rubbish’.
“There were always a lot of shady looking people living there,” they said. “You never knew who was coming or going.
“The police kept coming by and refusing to let them in.”
They said Kiss had been brutally beaten about six weeks ago, but initially she refused to go to the hospital. Eventually she gave in and was admitted for four days.
When she finally left the property, the kitchen stove and roof tiles were missing.
“It took weeks for them to clean up the mess she made and left behind,” they said.
“She wasn’t a bad person, but we were relieved to see her leave.”
NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal documents obtained by Daily Mail Australia show that Ms Kiss and her former landlord, Jung Won Yoon, went to court over her unpaid rent.
Pictured: the burnt-out shed at Mrs Kiss’ old rental house in Strathfield. She moved because of a rent increase
The shed burned down when an e-bike caught fire. She was also $6,188 behind on rent
According to the documents, she “frequently failed to pay rent and water bills” and ran up enormous debt.
She did not attend the hearing and, in her absence, was required to pay her landlord $108.57 per day starting the day after the lease ended on May 15.
The NCAT documents did not mention the e-bike fire.
Neighbors at her new home in Russell Lea said Mrs Kiss would stand on her doorstep after 8pm and burn items in a fire drum.
“Our house filled with smoke,” a neighbor said.
‘I asked her to stop burning and offered her our bins and she got a bit shy in an ‘I can do whatever I want’ kind of attitude.
“She was with some unsavory characters, so I backed off a little bit and she kept burning things – and I’m talking massive flames every night for the last three weeks.”
On the morning Mrs. Kiss died, Art reportedly ran into the house brandishing two knives, a sword and a cleaver.
Pictured: A former roommate outside the crime scene Friday morning
Police conducted a massive investigation into the crime scene in Russell Lea on Thursday and Friday
He allegedly shouted at his four housemates to sit down and started showing Mrs Kiss texts from an unknown sender on his phone.
‘You’re trying to frame me, who should try to kill me? Who is that girl texting me?’ he shouted, police allege in court documents.
“You’re trying to frame me or get me killed, now you’re trying to kill me.”
Art is said to have held Ms Kiss by the neck before grabbing the cleaver, while another female housemate tried to stop the alleged attack with a chair before fleeing and calling the police.
Detectives later said it was one of the worst crime scenes they had ever encountered.
Another neighbor said the surviving housemates are “too traumatized” to return to the house and retrieve their belongings.
Art was represented by lawyer Javid Faiz at Parramatta Bail Court on Friday. He did not apply for bail, but it was formally rejected.
His case will be heard again at Burwood District Court on August 22.