Man who murdered Celeste Manno likely to stalk and harm again if released, Melbourne court told
A man who savagely murdered a young woman in her own bed will very likely stalk and harm another woman if he is released from prison, a court has been told.
The forensic psychiatrist Rajan Darjee found Luay Sako’s risk of reoffending to be so high that he could engage in stalking behaviour against a female prison staffer while in custody.
“He has a moderate to high risk of further stalking and if he did return to stalking, there is a high risk of violence if he felt thwarted,” Darjee told the Victorian supreme court on Wednesday.
Sako, 39, has pleaded guilty to murdering Celeste Manno, 23, in her home in Melbourne’s north-east in the early hours of 16 November 2020.
She had been asleep when he smashed through her bedroom window and repeatedly stabbed her to death. Sako has argued he only caused two of the 23 stab wounds and claimed the rest of her injuries came from broken glass.
The pair were briefly co-workers but Sako began harassing and stalking the 23-year-old after she turned him down romantically, sending her more than 140 messages.
Manno went to police and obtained an intervention order against Sako but the contact only ceased after he was charged with breaching the order.
The day after he was arrested, Sako bought the knife he would use to kill Manno three months later, the prosecutor Patrick Bourke said.
Sako used Instagram and Google Earth to locate Manno’s home and he drove past the property at least three times.
He also searched online for the house’s floor plan so he could determine where Manno’s bedroom was.
It was only after Manno posted a photo of her boyfriend for the first time on Instagram that Sako broke into her home and killed her.
“It was the sight of Ms Manno with another man that triggered those motivations of anger, jealousy and rage,” Bourke said.
The prosecutor said Sako intentionally chose to attack Manno in her own bed in the early hours of the morning when she was most vulnerable.
“He doesn’t rock up to her workplace in the middle of the day,” Bourke said.
“He finds her house, he finds her bedroom and goes there in the middle of the night.”
The murder was an unprovoked, savage and cowardly attack, Bourke said.
The prosecutor accepted Sako’s diagnosed severe personality disorder and major depressive disorder would have amplified his feelings of humiliation and rage, leading to him carrying out the murder.
But the conditions also limited his ability to engage in mental health treatment and rehabilitation, which meant his risk to the public remained high, Bourke said.
The plea hearing before Justice Jane Dixon continues.