‘She was everything to us, it’s such a tragedy — she was just an innocent girl’

The 25-year-old could be heard screaming for help as she staggered away from the units he shared with her husband, Solomon Jenbare, the man who’d selected her in an arranged marriage and brought her to Australia to live.

He was also the man who killed her. Up to eight stabs to the neck and back, the worst tearing the skin as much as 17cm and cutting 8cm deep.

It was never supposed to end this way. Ms Asefaw was young, popular, beautiful and the envy of her community in Ethiopia, according to her devastated family.

She wanted a career in medicine and lived for others — her family, her friends, the church.

When she came to Australia it was supposed to be the start of a better, happy life. But things were not so happy with her husband, the much older Jenbare.

It was an arranged marriage, a not uncommon occurrence in their culture, but right from the start he was not telling her the truth, Ms Asefaw’s mother Asnaku Kebede Eshete told news.com.au.

“He told her he injured his hands in a car accident. That it happened in Australia, and the car rolled three times,” Ms Eshete claimed.

In fact, his hands were deformed through leprosy. The condition, and others the 52-year-old suffers from, were detailed in his trial for murdering Ms Asefaw at the NSW Supreme Court. He pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter, arguing he was substantially mentally impaired by years of torture in Ethiopia which reduced his culpability for the killer to manslaughter.

After deliberating for two hours the jury found him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on Tuesday.

An expert witness called by the defence, Olav Nielssen, testified his opinion was Jenbare was suffering PTSD and a depressive, psychiatric illness.

The jury heard he didn’t deny killing Ms Asefaw, and in fact saw a videotaped “confession” from him where he told detectives his recollection of what happened.

They had been arguing in their Auburn unit about Ms Asefaw’s plan to bring her nephew to Australia, something he didn’t want to happen.

“I don’t know whether I cut her with that way, as I pulled the knife, or this way ... I don’t know how the knife gone into her, I don’t have any idea.” As he spoke on the video, he swung his arm from side to side in a slashing motion, in a graphic illustration of what he was saying.

This week, as she waited for the jury to decide Jenbare’s fate, Ms Eshete reflected about what she’d been told about her daughter’s marriage. As far as she was aware, her daughter was happy. But she now worried Ms Asefaw kept things from her.

The trial heard police had been called twice to the couple’s unit when they had been arguing. However, no charges were laid after either incident and there was no allegations of violence in either one.

Instead, as far as Ms Eshete and her son Isegaye Yohanes Asefaw believed, life in Australia was wonderful.

“We didn’t know much, she never gave us much feedback. Each time I asked, she was like ‘everything is fine’ but how are you — she was always asking after other people.”

To them she “had no problems in her life”, was happy in her work as a nurse, and heavily involved in the church.

“Everyone in the community, anyone she met they loved her. She was reliable, honest, trustworthy and friendly.”

Then in April 2014 came the news every parent dreads.

A family friend came to their home in Ethiopia and sat them down and told them. Wubanchi was dead. Stabbed in Sydney. She was gone.

Ms Eshete said she couldn’t believe it. She still can’t.

“He killed an innocent girl,” she told news.com.au through tears.

It devastated her so much she would do anything to change it, even saying she wished it was her that was killed.

But it also makes her very angry, and sad for what could have been. “She was always thinking of others and wanting to help people ... She could have had a happy life.”

She doesn’t use Jenbare’s name, referring to him as “the killer”.

“When the killer, when he proposed marriage to my daughter he knew she was from a respected family, he picked the best girl from the neighbourhood and convinced her he had a good heart and would be a good husband. She accepted it and we accepted it.”

Since they lived in Ethiopia for much of her marriage to Jenbare, the family had to trust people here everything was going well.

After the not guilty to murder verdict was handed down, Ms Asefaw’s reacted furiously, crying out “he’s a killer” and her daughter “was gone forever”.

“Is this the justice system in Australia?” she asked. “Where is the justice in Australia?”

Mr Asefaw said the family was unhappy with the court process. They believed Australian law had provided a “loophole” for him to use in court.

Sitting in court listening to the evidence, particularly around the circumstance of her death, was hard, se said.

“It’s just been so sad and frustrating. She was everything to us, it’s just such a tragedy — she was just an innocent girl.”

Jenbare will face a sentencing hearing on Monday.

andrew.koubaridis@news.com.au