Tribute to slain brother

THE sister of a Townsville man murdered in his own home has spoken of how her family will never get over how her brother was so “cruelly and callously” taken.

Mary Knyvett penned a heartbreaking tribute to her brother David, whom she de- scribed as kind and having a heart of gold.

“David was about the most honest man you ever could have met,” she wrote in a statement given to the Bulletin.

“He was witty and a good bloke and people like him.”

Mr Knyvett, 59, died from inhaling his own blood after being beaten with an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle and then tied up in the bathroom of his Belgian Gardens home on November 15, 2015.

His former housemate Kyle Robert Thompson, 29, was last week found guilty of his murder by a jury in the Townsville Supreme Court and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In a video of his police interview played during the trial, Thompson said he had been abused by Mr Knyvett and that he hit him that day after being groped in the kitchen.

But Justice David North concluded Thompson’s offending was violent and without provocation and he “demonstrated an element of cowardliness”. Ms Knyvett said her family were “shocked and sickened” to hear of the allegations of abuse against Mr Knyvett, who could not defend himself, by a man she says her brother had tried to help.

“( David) wanted to assist others who he saw as disadvantaged, and who hadn’t had the opportunities he felt he had in his early life,” she wrote.

“He believed that with sufficient care, understanding, tolerance, patience and forgiveness, as well as consider- able input of his own personal finances and material belongings, that the man who ultimately took his life would eventually become a good upstanding citizen. Tragically, David was wrong, and he paid a terrible price.”

Ms Knyvett said her family will never get over her brother’s death but they were satisfied with the murder verdict.

“We will of course move on and get on with our lives but the scars are deep,” she wrote.

“David will shine brightly in our memories and never forget him.

“Nothing can bring David back but at least we know justice has been delivered to the person who so cruelly and callously took his life.”

Mr Knyvett’s family wished to publicly thank Detective Senior Constable Rowan Cunningham and Detective Sergeant Brendan Stevenson and their investigation teams who worked on the case, as well as Prosecutor Nigel Lees and the members of the jury. we will