Axe killer not guilty of murder

A Sydney woman has been found not guilty of murder of but rather of manslaughter after attacking her sleeping former partner with a tomahawk axe.

Justice Michael Grove announced his verdict in the New South Wales Supreme Court today at the trial of the fifty-one year old Maitland woman. Among other outlets, the ABC reported the story. Her guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter was not accepted by the Crown and it had proceeded with the murder trial. The woman had admitted striking the sixty-one year old sleeping victim with an axe. Her fourteen-year old son then stabbed his father. The incident occurred at the victim’s Schofields home in north-west Sydney in December 2007. The woman’s juvenile son has since been diagnosed with schizophrenia and has been found unfit to plead. The woman in question and the victim can not be named. Justice Grove explained that the woman had been prey to delusions which were deemed significant enough to impact on her ability to control her actions.