A Palmerston woman who stabbed her partner in the heart with a 13-centimetre kitchen knife has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Northern Territory Supreme Court.
Yvonne Lulda, 36, had been released from prison on parole after a separate serious harm offence about two months before the stabbing attack in Palmerston in July 2022.
The NT Supreme Court heard she had met the victim at a rehabilitation program in May, where they started a relationship.
Agreed facts of the case, read to the court, said the victim exited the program on June 28 and, on July 2, Lulda was allowed to leave the rehab centre for the day and return that evening.
However, the court heard she cut off her electronic monitoring device and did not return.
"The offender returned to the program three or four days later to collect her belongings. [She] was visibly intoxicated at this time," crown prosecutor Hamish Riley said.
Five days later, after a day of drinking at an apartment in the Palmerston suburb of Gray on the outskirts of Darwin, witnesses reported hearing a woman yelling and screaming.
The court heard Lulda was seen in the car park of the unit block armed with a 13-centimetre knife, before she stabbed her 26-year-old partner in the chest.
A witness immediately dialled triple-0, but paramedics declared the victim dead about half an hour later.
"The bloodied knife used to stab the victim was found on the ground … approximately 10 metres from where the victim was found," Mr Riley said.
"Police located the offender sitting on the curb on the other side of the unit block with blood on her hands. The offender was visibly intoxicated."
The court heard Lulda told police: "I never do anything wrong … I love my husband so much; I never do that to him. Someone else did that to him, not f***ing me."
After arrest, the court heard she said: "But I like, I didn't mean to do that thing."
Lulda's lawyer, Joe Burke, told the court he was seeking a psychiatric report for his client before she is sentenced.
She faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
