A refugee suffered an "outpouring of rage" over his traumatic childhood as part of an ethnic minority in Myanmar when he stabbed a woman more than 100 times inside a historic Adelaide home, a court has heard.
Numan Mohammed, 24, will be given a life sentence for the murder of 39-year-old Kim Chau at a CBD house owned by high-profile public servants Lois Boswell and Don Frater in September 2019.
Supreme Court Justice Anne Bampton will set a non-parole period next month after Mohammed pleaded guilty to murder.
Prosecutor Sue Agnew today told the court the killing was planned as Mohammed had researched how to commit a murder beforehand, including looking at the Wikipedia page "Murder in Australia".
She said he scouted out the house for eight minutes before breaking in.
The court heard the accused cleaned up and hid the body after he had inflicted 110 wounds in Ms Chau.
He then stole her BMW, the court heard.
"The accused was fixated on the deceased, especially on that morning and his intention was to confront her," she told the court.
"This was an extreme level of violence against an undeserving and vulnerable woman in her own home."
She said Ms Boswell and Mr Frater held a party that night for World Grenache Day and did not realise Ms Chau was dead upstairs.
"[Ms Chau] had invited a couple of friends … they came, and she wasn't there," she said.
Murder not premeditated, lawyer says
Paul Charman, for Mohammed, told Justice Bampton that his client intended to kill Ms Chau once he was in the house but did not pre-plan the "brutal" attack before breaking in.
"This is an outpouring of rage — he took everything out on her for everything that happened to him in his life," he said.
He said Mohammed was a Muslim living in Myanmar and was beaten by his father before being given a backpack at the age of 12 and told to go to Thailand by boat.
The court heard he eventually came to Australia on another boat, before spending 18 months on Christmas Island and being granted a protection visa.
Ms Boswell and Mr Frater allowed refugees to reside in their home and Mohammed had lived there previously but was not a resident at the time he murdered Ms Chau.
Mr Charman said one of his client's "regrets" was harming the people who had helped him when he settled in Adelaide.
He said Mohammed had been smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol in the lead-up to the attack.
