Boronika Hothnyang was convicted of murdering her best friend AW in 2011 by stabbing him in the chest with a kitchen knife. Boronika received a 14-year sentence.
ABC’s Background Briefing recently investigated this case in Murder on trial: Was a Melbourne woman’s conviction beyond reasonable doubt? Background Briefing’s investigation revealed that:
The knife strike was cleanly delivered between two ribs, piercing his heart
Boronika had injured her dominant hand in a car accident several years before and was still receiving treatment for those injuries
The same hand had been cut and injured in a domestic incident a few weeks before AW was stabbed
Boronika was described as appearing heavily intoxicated by Department of Housing staff a couple of hours before the stabbing
In an earlier article, Reasonable doubt? A murder in Dandenong’ published in The Age on 13 May 2018, journalist John Power reported on
the reliability of the witnesses, particularly the only eye witness who has a history of dishonesty charges
the lack of any forensic link between Boronika and the crime
Contradictions between the eye witness who claimed that Boronika stabbed AW in a downwards action and the medical examiner who described a ‘knife wound with an upward trajectory’.
Claims by two other witnesses that they were asleep at the time of the stabbing despite other evidence indicating they were awake shortly before.
Claims by those same witnesses that they did not see AW’s body on leaving the flat just after the stabbing despite being in very close proximity.
We believe that this case exhibits the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction.