Tucson CitizenTucson Citizen

Australian woman convicted of killing man over barking dog

SYDNEY – A woman was convicted Wednesday of fatally stabbing a neighbor who complained about her barking dog in Australia’s biggest city.

A New South Wales Supreme Court jury found Katrina Megan Whitmore, 26, guilty of murder after two days of deliberations.

Joseph Durrant, 47, of Sydney, was on his way home from Australia Day celebrations Jan. 27, 2007, when he argued with Whitmore in her yard about her dog. Prosecutors said Whitmore threatened Durrant then attacked him with a knife.

“She does say that she told people not to speak to her dog like that,” prosecutor Chris Maxwell told the court.

A witness, Adam Duncan, told the court he was at a party next door when he saw Whitmore run down her driveway brandishing a knife, adding that he was “pretty sure Katrina stabbed him in the neck.”

Whitmore has acknowledged there was a struggle but denied wielding a knife.

She will be sentenced May 29.

Co-accused Steven Spiro Sotiropoulos, who was involved in the fight and charged alongside Whitmore, was found not guilty of murder.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

Search site | Terms of service