Victim drenched in blood

FRIENDS of a man stabbed at Junee spoke yesterday of seeing him lying on the ground, his clothing drenched in blood.The man, 36-year-old Mitchell Ferrario, died on April 9 last year after being stabbed once in the left side of the chest.Alan Lawson-Brown, 72, told police he stabbed Mr Ferrario but, claiming self defence, has pleaded not guilty to murder.The stabbing took place at Lawson-Brown’s home unit at 2/29 George Street, about 50 metres from where Mr Ferrario had been attending a party at 20 Goulburn Street.On the second day of Lawson-Brown’s Supreme Court trial in Wagga yesterday, six people who were at a party with Mr Ferrario in the hours leading to his death gave evidence.Questioned by Crown prosecutor, Wayne Creasey, Trevor Thompson, who lives at the Goulburn Street house, said Mr Ferrario had left the party with his dog but then came back without the pet about 10 to 15 minutes later.He said he was in his yard when he heard Mr Ferrario call out “Thommo” from the front gate.When he went to Mr Ferrario he said he had been stabbed.Mr Thompson said a number of people gathered around Mr Ferrario to help him when he fell to the ground.“We lifted his shirt up and we could see it (the stab wound),” Mr Thompson said. “I said (to Mr Ferrario) take your hand away and I’ll take a look.”Mr Thompson shone a torch light onto the wound.“There was white clear liquid coming out of the wound, it wasn’t blood red,” Mr Thompson said.Guest Timothy Orr said Mr Ferrario was “just drenched in blood”.The partygoers were asked by Mr Creasey if they had heard Mr Ferrario talk about Lawson-Brown either at the party or beforehand. They all said no.It is alleged Lawson-Brown stabbed Mr Ferrario after Mr Ferrario confronted him at the George Street unit amid unfounded rumours Lawson-Brown was a paedophile.Kathryn Knynenburg told the court she was visiting her mother, who lives in George Street across the road from Lawson-Brown’s unit, the night of the stabbing.She said as she was going to bed about 10.30pm she heard a loud and fairly aggressive male voice.“I heard him say get out, get out here you freak, that is the one sentence I could make out,” Ms Knynenburg said.She said she heard only the one voice and that it frightened her son so much he wanted her to call the police.In his opening address to the jury on Monday, Mr Creasey said Mr Ferrario was friends with Robert Steven, who lived in an adjoining unit to Lawson-Brown, and who was also at the party.Mr Steven yesterday admitted he had clashed with Lawson-Brown over loud music the night he moved into the flat three months earlier.He said Lawson-Brown had tapped on his daughter’s bedroom window and then spoke with Mr Steven about a rental agreement.Mr Steven said he told Lawson-Brown he did not have a rental agreement with him, told him to go away and turned the music up even louder.Lawson-Brown’s defence counsel, Janet Manuell, suggested to Mr Steven her client did not knock on the girl’s window, but Mr Steven repeated that he had.Ms Manuell asked several witnesses if they knew of Mr Ferrario becoming aggressive when he was intoxicated.The jury has been told the night he died, Mr Ferrario had a blood alcohol reading of .285.Mr Orr said Mr Ferrario was a “little bloke” who would often “talk it up” like other intoxicated people, while Robert Charlton said of Mr Ferrario: “He is about as violent as a butterfly”.Ms Manuell asked the witnesses if they knew of an incident in July, 2008, in which Mr Ferrario was involved in a violent incident at his Hill Street house that led to a police officer being injured, charges against Mr Ferrario and him spending time in the Gissing House mental health inpatient facility at Wagga Base Hospital. Few of them knew of the matter.Earlier, the jury was shown a police video of Lawson-Brown’s modest but immaculately kept unit with a bloodied 32-centimetre knife sitting on the kitchen bench.The trial continues today.