The women who kill and the desperation that drives them

At the end of a horror winter for domestic violence in NSW – in which three women were allegedly murdered in just one day, a mother was accused of stabbing her children to death, and a caustic debate erupted over a politician’s comments – new research quietly revealed an ugly truth.

Women who kill their partners are almost always killing their abuser.

Three women – a 23-year-old in Wagga Wagga, a woman in her 90s in Bondi and a 70-year-old near Tenterfield – were allegedly murdered in separate domestic violence incidents across NSW within hours on September 19. Three men were charged with murder, including the Wagga woman’s partner and the Tenterfield woman’s son.

Two days earlier, Nirmeen Noufl was sentenced to a minimum three years behind bars after she stabbed her husband Mamdouh to death following a fight at their Greenacre home in October 2024.

The seemingly light manslaughter sentence shocked Mamdouh’s family. It also reignited a debate simmering since Senator Pauline Hanson in July declared domestic violence a “two-way street”.

Noufl used a saw to cut up her husband’s body and disposed of the remains in bins around Sydney’s south-west. His body parts were never recovered.

Noufl pleaded guilty to manslaughter, which prosecutors accepted in lieu of the original charge of murder, because of Mamdouh’s lengthy history of abuse.

“[Mamdouh] was controlling of his wife and daughters. He held conservative Islamic views with respect to the role of women in the home and community and was strict in the application of these views to his female relatives,” the agreed fact sheet released by the court reads.

“How does this woman get away with killing and dismembering her husband and then pleading manslaughter? Oh yes, she claims he abused her. The usual story,” one commentator posted.

The sentence divided the community. However, new research suggested it was part of a well-established pattern.

The NSW Coroner’s Domestic Violence Death Dashboard was launched in June and covers deaths between 2000 and 2026, and looked at 2234 homicide victims.

A subset of 336 are intimate-partner homicides, which are distinct from other forms of fatal domestic violence including children, parents, grandparents and siblings.

Of the 336 victims, four in five (293) were women and almost all women (99 per cent) were killed by their abuser.

The men killed in domestic violence (75 in total) were killed mostly by women (65) and rarely by male partners (10).

But the data also showed that 73 per cent of men killed by their partner were like Mamdouh Noufl – the primary abuser in the relationship.

The youngest female victim of an intimate partner homicide was aged just 15 years old, the oldest was 82, the data shows.

“These are lives cut short, children left without a mother, and families and communities shattered. This dashboard honours the victims, their families and communities,” NSW Women’s Safety Commissioner Hannah Tonkin said.

“Sadly, we know that for every death, there are thousands more women and children experiencing violence across the country every single day.”

Noufl was given six years and nine months in prison with a non-parole period of three years. She has spent two years in prison already, which means she will be eligible for parole in October 2027.

‘[Noufl] was in a violent and abusive relationship for many years, which satisfied the subjective limb of self-defence.’

Robert Candelori, solicitor

The sentence, handed down by Justice Peter Hamill on September 18, shocked Mamdouh’s family. His nephew flew into a rage outside court, saying Noufl should be doing “25 to life”.

Sydney solicitor Robert Candelori said Noufl’s sentence actually fell towards the higher end for manslaughter cases where women kill abusers.

“This is an unenviable sentencing exercise for any judge given the macabre manner of disposal of the victim’s body, however, that clouds the basis of the plea,” said Candelori, who has defended women who kill.

“There was evidence, corroborated by her children and other sources, indicating she was in a violent and abusive relationship for many years, which satisfied the subjective limb of self-defence.”

Prosecutors were obliged to prove Noufl had intentionally killed Mamdouh but couldn’t, in part because his body was never recovered. It forced them to accept a plea to manslaughter instead of murder.

Noufl’s case, as with many abused women who kill, was replete with evidence she had suffered extensively at the hands of people who should have cared for them, Candelori said.

“This is a woman who on all the evidence, including two expert psychiatrists, had serious mental health issues not just from the violent trauma she suffered at the hands of her husband but also in her abusive upbringing, including being subjected to female genital mutilation at the direction of her mother,” he said.

“In my opinion, her sentence was not lenient in the circumstances. But for the 25 per cent statutory plea discount, she would have received a head sentence of nine years which is towards the higher end for manslaughter sentences.”

There are notable other case studies in which women have killed their abuser, long before Noufl.

Bankstown mother Thi Bich Huynh, 37, stabbed her husband, Quo Dung Bui, 49, through the neck as he slept in 2021.

Bui had been physically and verbally abusive for years against his family, a court heard. Huynh was found not criminally responsible and dealt with under mental health laws in 2023.

Sydney’s Irish diaspora were shocked in 2017 when Cathrina Ann Cahill killed David Walsh in a drunken fight involving friends at their Padstow home.

Walsh had used “controlling conduct, verbal abuse and demeaning language” against Cahill throughout their relationship, and she would also respond with violence.

Cahill was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Jessica Silva, similarly, stabbed James Polkinghorne to death in 2012 outside her Marrickville home and received just 18 months for manslaughter which was entirely suspended. She was then acquitted entirely on appeal.

A judge noted “the circumstances faced by Ms Silva were horrendous” – Polkinghorne had attacked Silva, her father and brother in a rage.

Silva stabbed Polkinghorne in the back, killing him, in self-defence.

Noufl told confidants she “had enough” of the abuse, before she killed her husband.

“All my life I have dedicated to the kids and him, and he just treated me like shit. Spat at me,” she said.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732)

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