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An alarming number of Australian women have been killed in recent years. Find out more about their lives. Some of the cases are still before the courts.
See all 53 stories.A Sydney man has been found guilty of murdering his former partner inside her apartment during a fit of rage, after a court heard he cut off her desperate Triple Zero call, threw her phone off the balcony and stole her money.
Tatiana Dokhotaru, 34, died inside her 22nd-floor apartment in Liverpool in Sydney’s west on the evening of May 26, 2023.
Danny Zayat and Tatiana Dokhotaru.
After sitting through a 14-day NSW Supreme Court trial and 18 hours of deliberations, a jury on Thursday convicted 30-year-old Danny Zayat of murder over her death, which was caused by a brain bleed.
The jury reached its verdict based on a majority direction, meaning 11 of the 12 jurors agreed. It came after they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The trial heard that Zayat, while inside the unit between 10.35pm and 11.40pm, murdered Dokhotaru either by inflicting one or more blows to her head or in combination with a head impact from a fall.
In a disturbing Triple Zero call played to the jury, Dokhotaru was heard saying in her last moments that her “ex-boyfriend is here and he’s trying to kill me”, adding he was “bashing” her and “stealing my money from my house”.
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Zayat took the phone off her and threw it off the balcony, before quickly leaving the apartment and later implying to police that she took her own life because she was depressed and was known to “take pills”, the trial heard.
Crown prosecutor Alex Morris submitted that Dokhotaru’s violent death was the culmination of years of physical and verbal abuse by Zayat, which, alongside Dokhotaru’s love for him and other complexities, caused her ongoing “internal conflict”.
Defence barrister Madeleine Avenell, SC, argued there was reasonable doubt that Zayat caused Dokhotaru’s fatal injuries, suggesting they could have resulted from an accidental fall while she was affected by alcohol and medication.
Justice Desmond Fagan told the jury they must be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Zayat caused all three serious injuries that substantially caused Dokhotaru’s death.
For a murder verdict, the Crown needed to further prove he had an intent either to kill or cause grievous bodily harm, and to be guilty of manslaughter, he must have known that a reasonable person in his position would have seen that the injuries carried “an appreciable risk of serious injury”.
Zayat had pleaded not guilty to both charges.
More to come.
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