NSW man jailed for ‘frenzied’ fatal stabbing of friend who was trying to rape him
A New South Wales abattoir worker who woke up to find his friend trying to rape him and reacted by fatally stabbing him 49 times has been jailed for six years.
Newcastle supreme court Justice Helen Wilson accepted Jamie Cust had freaked out when being sexually assaulted by Filipino national Jesus Bebita and the savage killing was caused by extreme provocation.
Wilson said it was clear Cust, 23, had lost all self-control when he attacked Bebita, 41, in such a “frenzied fashion”.
She said Cust’s “ferocious response” to being sexually assaulted might have been prompted by an adrenalin rush to the brain to do whatever he could to fight off Bebita when in a hazy and vulnerable state between sleep and consciousness.
Jailing Cust on Thursday for six years with a minimum of four-and-ahalf years, the judge was satisfied the evidence on balance showed Bebita had been trying to have sex with Cust when he woke up.
A jury found Cust not guilty of murdering Bebita on the basis he had acted in extreme provocation but guilty of
manslaughter in the early hours of 18 December 2018.
The two men had been friends and colleagues at the JBS Meatworks at Scone when Cust was invited over to Bebita’s unit in the town for a few drinks.
Wilson said the two men had taken selfies on Cust’s mobile phone at about 9pm on 17 December showing them in the kitchen “smiling broadly and appearing happy”.
Bebita’s body was found lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom the next morning after having been stabbed 49 times.
Cust called his stepfather, Vivian Price, at 4.14am to pick him up and on the drive back to Muswellbrook told him: “I stabbed him because he tried to rape me.”
“I think he is dead. I woke up, my pants were down and he was rubbing his dick on me,” Cust told his stepfather.
When Cust later turned himself in at Muswellbrook police station, one police officer described him as being very upset, slurring his words and wiping away tears.
Cust told police: “I killed someone who tried to rape me.”
Wilson said it was likely Bebita struggled with Cust, who had been planning to catch a train to Sydney the next morning to start a new job as a trainee chef, and fled from the bedroom down the hallway to the bathroom pursued by Cust.
“This was a sustained and extremely brutal attack against an older, smaller and unarmed man,” the judge said.
She detailed how an autopsy revealed Bebita had been in a state of sexual excitement before being chased and killed by Cust.
Wilson said Bebita’s ordeal must have been both terrifying and painful but she accepted Cust’s claim that his friend and mentor had been trying to have sex with him when he lost selfcontrol.
The judge said Cust had been entitled to feel safe at his friend’s home and Bebita’s actions had been an obvious breach of trust.
Pointing to Cust’s psychiatric report, Wilson accepted his genuine remorse had reflected his horror at what he had done to a friend.
The report described Cust as an intelligent, adaptable and resilient young man with no history of violence, no criminal record and no mental illness or personality disorder.
Cust told the psychiatrist he still felt bad about what he did, regretted grabbing the knife and wished he had done things differently.
The judge was confident Cust’s prospects of rehabilitation were “very bright”.
Cust will be eligible for parole on 17 June 2023.