Victim's throat slashed in 'frenzied' attack metres from her door
Shandee Blackburn might not have been able to call for help before she died on a street in Mackay, Queensland, after a frenzied stabbing.
Her larynx had been sliced in the 2013 attack that killed her metres from her door, an inquest into her death has heard.
Witnesses found the young woman, who had been stabbed more than 20 times, coughing and gargling on a Mackay street.
Professor David Williams, who carried out the autopsy, told an inquest into her death on Monday it was possible she was not able to call for help due to her injuries.
He said the attack on the 23-year-old as she walked home from work had been "frenzied" and fast.
Taxi driver Jasprent Pandher, who saw two people fighting near where she died, also gave evidence, saying he saw a tall man running away across a park.
"It's like a shadow running ... for me ... it's like his hands are holding something," he said.
A murder weapon has never been found, nor the white handbag Ms Blackburn was thought to be carrying home.
Ms Blackburn's boyfriend in the months before her death, Arron Macklin, was the first witness on Monday.
He said she had not appeared scared to walk home from the country club where she worked.
The inquest began with barrister Craig Eberhardt, for John Peros, who was acquitted of Ms Blackburn's murder in a 2017 trial, asking for police to be in court when witness William Daniel gives evidence.
Mr Eberhardt said he and a solicitor were inspecting the site where Ms Blackburn had been stabbed on Sunday night, when a car pulled up and Mr Daniel called out a threat.
"(They) then made a motion like a machine gun, firing motion towards us," Mr Eberhardt told the Mackay court.
Coroner David O'Connell, assisted by John Aberdeen, will investigate over two weeks the circumstances surrounding Ms Blackburn's death.
He will also consider whether electronic surveillance should be increased in high-risk areas and whether pubs and clubs should offer courtesy bus services home for staff who do not have safe transport.
Mr Aberdeen said Levii Blackman, who at one point said two acquaintances had confessed to the killing, is due to give evidence on Tuesday.
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