Clive Whyte told police it looked like he was the culprit when his neighbour was stabbed to death, and now a jury has found him guilty of murder.
Martin Bebbington was on the phone to emergency services when he was fatally stabbed inside his Alexandra home, in central Victoria, weeks before Christmas in 2020.
Martin Bebbington, 60, was stabbed to death in Alexandra in December 2020.
Whyte and Bebbington both had issues with alcoholism and struck up a friendship that involved drinking.
They were drinking together on December 6, 2020 and into the early hours of the following morning.
Bebbington called triple-zero at about 1.30am.
“Hey buddy, I need an ambulance here now,” he told the operator.
“I don’t know what he’s going to do, he’s got a knife with him.”
The operator heard Bebbington scream four times and drop the phone. He breathed heavily for a time and then stopped.
Jurors heard Whyte then got on the phone and called the operator “brain dead” and a “dickhead”.
“He’s dead meat,” Whyte said. “Dead, dead, dead, duh.”
When asked what had happened, Whyte said they had a big argument and unfortunately Bebbington was now dead.
“It looks bad. My friend is dead, we’ve both been drinking, so it looks like I’m the culprit or f—ing whatever,” Whyte said.
Whyte was on Wednesday found guilty of murder after a Supreme Court trial.
Prosecutor Ray Gibson, KC, had told the jury Whyte deliberately killed 60-year-old Bebbington, who was stabbed three times in the chest and twice beneath the chin.
Bebbington also suffered a fractured ankle and an autopsy found no defensive wounds.
Supreme Court Justice Amanda Fox will sentence Whyte at a later date.
AAP
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