By Emily Woods, Aap
Adam Brown claimed his wife had tried to attack him in their kitchen, when he plunged a blade deep into her neck and chest.
While their two-year-old son was in another room, the Deakin University lecturer stabbed Chen Cheng after an argument about the toddler’s kindergarten arrangements.
“We were basically at each other with knives,” Brown told police when he was arrested.
But a Supreme Court judge shut down Brown’s story, as he jailed him for up to 24 years on Tuesday.
Justice John Champion said there was a clear disparity between the 35-year-old mother’s “catastrophic” fatal stab wounds and the 41-year-old’s minor injuries.
“Ms Cheng fought for her life against your attack on her,” he said.
“It is clear that you had an opportunity to stop, put the knife down and walk away from the argument. Instead you engaged in what you knew to be morally abhorrent behaviour.”
Neighbours found Ms Cheng’s lifeless body on the grass in the backyard of the family’s Croydon North unit. They rushed to the home after hearing her scream: “Help me, help me, he’s trying to kill me.”
Ms Cheng was born in China and the couple met in 2016 after she moved to Melbourne for university. They married a year later and Ms Cheng gave birth to their son in 2020.
Her mother, who stayed with the couple after their son was born, witnessed arguments between them and became worried about their marriage when she returned home to China. She started calling her daughter every day.
On April 30 last year, Ms Cheng was on WeChat to her mother for 77 minutes while she had dinner with Brown and their son.
After the call, the couple began fighting in an upstairs room about 9.30pm, before moving down to their kitchen.
Justice Champion said Brown had been triggered by the argument when he entered into a “state of rage”.
He felt humiliated by Ms Cheng, and claimed he was trying to restrain her after she spat at him and hit him around his ears.
Brown stabbed and cut his wife more than 10 times between their kitchen and backyard.
He admitted the killing during his first police interview and later formally pleaded guilty to murder.
Ms Cheng was physically smaller and more vulnerable than Brown, who overpowered her in the “savage and sustained attack”, Justice Champion said.
He said the murder of an intimate partner was utterly reprehensible and all too common in Australia.
Brown had deprived his son of both his parents at a young age, he said, and Ms Cheng’s family of a beloved daughter, sister and niece.
“You have permanently impacted the lives of so many people,” Justice Champion said in sentencing Brown.
Brown, who waved to family members as he was escorted out of court, will be eligible for parole after 17-and-a-half years. He has already served more than a year of his sentence.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
Lifeline 13 11 14
