Man stabbed while sipping coffee and home set on fire

Robyn Wuth | February 2, 2023

A man is fighting for his life after being stabbed in the chest while sipping a cup of coffee on a balcony before his Brisbane home was set alight.  

An early-morning jogger raised the alarm when he spotted the man in “significant distress” at the Grange just before 5.30am on Thursday. 

His alleged attacker, a 44-year-old woman, then set several items alight and barricaded herself in the bathroom while the couple’s two children slept nearby, police said. 

The children – an 11-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl – woke when the home’s fire alarms were activated. 

Detective Superintendent Andrew Massingham said the injured 43-year-old man was lucky to be alive, with the 20cm kitchen blade narrowly missing his heart. 

“He is extremely lucky  … the gentleman would have lost a lot of blood very quickly and he may have become incapacitated up here and we simply would not have known,” Det Supt Massingham said.

Police believe the injured man pulled the knife from his wound and tossed it into his front yard, where detectives later recovered the blade.

“The man at that time was locked on the balcony … you’ll see the ladders in place,” Det Supt Massingham said.

“The first thoughts of neighbours and that jogger was to try and remove him as quickly as possible from their balcony and save his life.”

Neighbours could also hear the panicked children calling for help, and released them without injury. 

Emergency services extinguished the fire, before breaking into the locked bathroom and taking the woman into custody. 

The woman was treated for smoke inhalation and taken to hospital for treatment, where she remains under police guard. 

The injured man is undergoing emergency surgery and remains in critical condition. 

“Our early advice in relation to the 43-year-old man was that his life was in significant danger – paramedics worked tirelessly on him,” Det Supt Massingham said. 

“He’s currently in surgery, and he’s in critical condition at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.”

Police hope to interview the woman later on Thursday as investigations continue. 

“We’re obviously looking at some of the causation factors and victimology,” Det Supt Massingham said.

“We will be certainly interested in what would spark such a sudden and horrendously graphic scene.”

He said the family was not known to the police, and no protection orders were in place at the address. 

“Those traditional indicators that we tend to see with a lot of these incidents – whether it be previous domestic violence, calls for service, either by us or mental health practitioners – we don’t see any of that in this scenario here today, which once again shows us that sometimes these things can be hidden,” Det Supt Massingham  said.

He urged people in situations of domestic violence to seek support. 

“If you choose to come forward when safe to do so we will always listen,” Det Supt Massingham said.

“We  will always believe you where evidence exists, and we will always take your matter forward and investigate these matters with significant interest.” 

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