A chronic schizophrenic who brutally stabbed his sister to death in Bulli and then tried to take his own life under the false belief that people were out to kill them both, has been found not guilty of murder due to mental illness.
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The finding, handed down in the Supreme Court on Thursday, means David John Peter Brown will not be handed an actual sentence for his crime but will remain in detention, in a psychiatric facility, indefinitely.
His case will be referred to the Mental Health Review Tribunal, which will only release him back into the community when it's satisfied he is no longer a threat to the public or himself.
During a one-day hearing on the case in March, it was revealed Brown was unmedicated, sleep deprived and having paranoid delusions when he stabbed his 52-year-old sister, Therese Ann Brown, to death in their Bulli home in the early hours of January 3 last year.
The 47-year-old then plunged the knife into his own chest, but failed to create more than a small wound.
He then drove his sister's car 70 kilometres to their old family home at Gladesville, before driving on to the local police station.
Covered in blood, he walked into the station at 5.30am and told officers what he'd done.
It was there he first told authorities that "it had to be done" because people "were out to get" him and his family.
"They are going to get me, they have been after me for a while ... they have cut up other family members in pieces and put them in chicken bags," he told police.
"I know what was in store for her, it had to be done. They're coming to get me."
The court heard Brown's delusions involved his finances and the irrational belief that anyone pictured in photos displayed in his home would be murdered by the unknown people.
Following the attack, he provided an incoherent version of events to police, revealing he had been hearing voices urging him to kill his sister.
The court heard Brown had been admitted to Wollongong Hospital in July-August 2013, and again in September-October 2013, with similar paranoid delusions.
He had stopped taking his psychiatric medication in the lead-up to the attack on his sister.
Handing down the decision on Thursday, Acting Justice Jane Mathews said she was firmly of the view a not-guilty verdict was the only appropriate course.
"The whole of the evidence in the case points in one direction only, namely that when the accused inflicted the fatal stab wounds on his sister he was suffering from a mental illness," she said.
Justice Mathews noted that psychiatrists who had assessed Brown during his time behind bars believed he would require "ongoing treatment for a considerable time" due to the severity of his schizophrenia. He had not yet responded to treatment with anti-psychotic drugs.
