A homeless woman has been committed to stand trial for the stabbing murder of a man on Windang’s Picnic Island.
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Wearing a blue dressing gown, Rachel Impson screamed hysterically as she tried to wave down passing traffic at the northbound approach to Windang Bridge, the night of October 26, 2014.
Fifteen metres along the road, a car swerved to avoid a man who walked with his bloodied palms held at chest height. A knife wound to his back went more than 14cm deep – through his ribs, pulmonary artery and left lung. Michael Insley, 38, would be pronounced dead 45 minutes later.
Under a fisherman’s torchlight, Impson, then aged 37, allegedly dropped a bloody knife to the ground and confessed to the fatal strike.
“I have stabbed someone,” she said, according to a police account considered by Wollongong Local Court during committal proceedings on Monday. “He was trying to get into my tent … I have been living here [Picnic Island].”
The court heard Impson and Mr Insley were involved in a short, non-sexual relationship complicated by violence, drugs and mental illness. Impson was kicked out of her Dapto rental room in August after her landlord noticed her rearranging the entire house’s furniture and “obsessively” cleaning. She soon fell out of favour with a subsequent landlord, who changed the locks.
She met Mr Insley when she went out on her bike in search of someone who could sell her cannabis. The pair became friends and she moved into the Port Kembla home he shared with his parents and siblings. He loaned her money to buy the tent and decided to move in with her when those living arrangement disintegrated.
But the court heard evidence Impson grew fearful of him and repeatedly tried to eject him from the tent. She allegedly called police when Mr Insley crash tackled her to the ground on the island on October 25, but no officers came.
She accused him of killing her cat, Angel, when the pet went missing. The cat was found dead on Windang Bridge on October 25, clearly run over, according to police documents. Impson collected its frozen remains from the RSPCA shelter at Unanderra and confronted Mr Insley in view of a bystander on Windang Bridge, about eight hours before he would be pronounced dead.
Mr Insley denied killing the cat. He phoned a friend and said Impson was “crazy” and “not my girlie anymore”, police will allege.
Passing motorists would stop to help him on the roadside hours later. He passed out as he allegedly gave a police officer the name of his attacker – “Rachel Imms”.
The matter will go before the Supreme Court of NSW on September 1.