Elderly woman killed husband with axe, Adelaide court told
An elderly woman attacked and killed her husband with two knives and an axe during a psychotic episode, an Adelaide court has heard.
Lucia Colella, 75, has been in hospital since she allegedly murdered her husband Antonio in their home at Alberton in the western suburbs last July.
The woman stabbed him with two knives but he died from a head wound inflicted using an axe, prosecutor James Slocombe told Adelaide Magistrates Court.
The court heard paramedics telephoned the woman during the actual killing because her medic alert necklace had been tripped.
The court was told Colella answered the call and told them her husband was dying and that he was "awake but not breathing".
Mr Slocombe said the woman later told police, without being prompted: "I've done it, I've killed my husband."
The prosecutor opposed bail, arguing Colella was unstable and posed a risk to both herself and the community.
Police noted that "she had a number of serious injuries, including a severe laceration to the right arm," he told the court, and they were allegedly self-inflicted, not defensive wounds.
Colella's lawyer Stephen Ey argued the woman deserved bail, having "never been in trouble with the police".
He said the woman suffered from undiagnosed psychosis before her husband's death.
"She's ... suffering from psychosis and psychotic episodes which have not been properly diagnosed and it all came to a head on this day that she killed her husband," he told the hearing.
Mr Ey said psychiatric reports showed the woman's mental health had improved since the attack.
"Just over the last month [her treating doctor] Dr Fraser has expressed a view to the defendant's children that the time is now right for their mother to be released from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital," he said.
He said she could be supervised by her sister and three children, one of whom would live with her.
Mr Ey also argued another psychiatrist "supports that she has a mental incompetence defence ... and he's of the view that she presents a low risk of further reoffending".
Magistrate David Whittle delayed making a bail ruling.
"It seems to me that more is required than this brief recitation of some opinion expressed by Dr Fraser," he said.
"It just doesn't seem to be enough under the circumstances. I just need more information."
He asked the prosecution and defence to supply questions to the treating doctor to help work out whether the accused woman would be suitable for bail.
A further hearing has been scheduled for next week.
