Woman ‘fetched knife for murder’

BEFORE he died, Launceston man Aaron Monaco managed to croak out the name of the man who’d viciously stabbed him with a wolf-headed blade.

The 41-year-old said the murderer’s name twice and to two different police officers: Nathan Smith.

Smith and his Ravenswood girlfriend Belinda Leone Colbran, who held Monaco while her boyfriend stabbed his foe to death in November 2016, are each serving 24-year jail terms for murder.

But on Tuesday, Colbran argued she wasn’t ultimately responsible for Mr Monaco’s death, so she shouldn’t spend that long in jail.

“At no time has Ms Colbran been referred to in any way,” her lawyer Adrian Hilly told the Court of Criminal Appeal.

“If Ms Colbran has been doing anything to Mr Monaco … it would be probable he would highlight Ms Colbran in his dying declaration.”

But Chief Justice Alan Blow said the jury in Colbran’s trial found it had been a “two-onone attack”.

John Ransom, representing the Crown, said while it was accepted only Smith was named in Mr Monaco’s dying declaration, there was strong evidence of Colbran’s culpability.

He also said she was accurately able to describe the knife, and said she’d retrieved it before the murder.

“She described it as a big f..k-off shiny one (with) a wolf on it,” Mr Ransom said. “There was clear evidence that there was a box under the bed and that she took the knife from it.”

Chief Justice Blow, along with Justices Stephen Estcourt and Michael Brett, will deliver their decision at a future date.