Man who stabbed his father to death is found NOT guilty of murder

JAMES Patrick Graf who stabbed his father to death has been found not guilty of murder due to mental illness and will be detained in a mental health facility.

Mr. Patrick Graf pleaded not guilty to murdering Lance Graf, 59, in August 2018 at their home in Gol Gol, a town near the Victorian border.

The 28-year-old, has been diagnosed with schizophrenia since the age of just 19, however, he had stopped taking his antipsychotic medication about a month before he stabbed his father to death.

In the Supreme Court, Acting Justice Peter Hidden found Graf not guilty of murder by reason of mental illness.

Graf had called triple zero after the attack, initially reporting that unknown persons had stabbed his father.

Police found him dead on the dining room floor with numerous wounds to his neck and extensive bruising to the right side of the face.

When asked what he could tell police about the death of his dad, he said: ‘Um, um, he threw collateral timing at me so, um, I shoved him and, um, um, he tried to raise my hearing over my roof. So, um, so I, um, whimsicalised him…’

He also said his father ‘wanted to eloquent a piece of deficit from his brain tissue that was just not within my grasp to create a frontal mean’.

‘I just wanted to make sure that he stopped serving dinner every night like with paprika on top,’ he said.

Justice Hidden said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Graf caused the death of his father.

‘Given the presence of delusional beliefs and disorganised thinking pattern, he would be regarded to have had a defect of reasoning at the time of the alleged offence,’ one psychiatrist said.

The judge ordered Graf to be detained in a mental health facility ‘until released by due process of law’.

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Charlie Loran

Manchester born mummy with a two year old diva (2020), living on the Costa del Sol for just short of a decade.
Former chef and restaurateur, holistic health fanatic and lover of long words.

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