A mentally ill Queensland man who fatally stabbed his sick wife to end her suffering from lifelong back pain has been jailed for nine years.

December 20, 2019

A severely depressed Brisbane man brutally stabbed his sick wife to death to end her lifelong suffering then said he loved her as he kissed her goodbye.

Brian John Kenny, 71, has been jailed for at least three years and two months after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Mauryeen Annette Kenny, 69, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in their Stafford Heights home in April 2017.

Suffering undiagnosed mental illness, Kenny put on gardening gloves and attacked his sleeping wife with a serrated bread knife, the Brisbane Supreme Court was told on Friday. 

“He approached Mauryeen in the bed and stabbed her in the throat. He put his hand over mouth and nose (but she) resisted,” prosecutor Caroline Marco said.

“During the course of the attack Mauryeen (told Kenny) that she loved him and at one point asked for a glass of water.”

Kenny told his wife he loved her too and that he was going to end the lifelong back pain she suffered following a childhood horseriding accident.

“(He) gave Mauryeen a kiss, covered her up and watched her stop breathing,” Ms Marco said.

A post-mortem examination found Ms Kenny died from five stab wounds.

One sliced her jugular, another exited the back of her head.

She also had injuries consistent with strangulation.

After killing his wife of 38 years, Kenny then tried to take his own life by stabbing himself in the stomach and leg but he couldn’t go through with it.

Instead, he wrote a letter to his daughter apologising for what he’d done, explaining his own medication had “turned him into a zombie without the ability to reason”.

Two days later he called police and told them he’d murdered his wife.

Three psychiatrists found Kenny had suffered a major depressive event and had diminished responsibility, prompting the original murder charge to be withdrawn by the Crown.

The mental illness was found to have significantly distorted Kenny’s thinking, which made him believe the only reasonable course of action was to kill his wife in order to alleviate her pain.

Despite this, Kenny retained the capacity to understand that what he was doing, Ms Marco said as she argued for a nine-year sentence without parole.

Defence lawyer Tim Ryan argued an eight-year sentence with parole after serving one-third of the term was more appropriate.

He explained that in the six months leading up to the attack Kenny had lost 20kg, was sleepless and, despite his doctor’s best efforts to find a cause, continued to mentally decline before suffering a psychotic episode.

“His wife had hinted how difficult life may well be for them in the future as far as health issues were concerned,” Mr Ryan said.

“And his distorted thinking seems to have led him to then to catastrophise the extent of the illness she had.”

But Justice David Boddice was having none of it.

“It was particularly brutal and sustained … not only the stabbing … but also the asphyxiation and the fact his wife was struggling against it makes it worse,” he said.

He also noted Kenny’s suicide attempt after he killed his wife was half-hearted.

“The injuries were entirely superficial … it’s not really a realistic (attempt) in any shape or form,” Justice Boddice said

He sentenced Kenny to nine years’ jail with parole eligibility after three years and two months.