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A young man faces at least two decades in prison after being found guilty of stabbing a Darwin bottle shop worker to death.
Declan Laverty, 20, was on shift at BWS near Darwin at the airport on March 19, 2023, when he was fatally stabbed in the chest by then 19-year-old Keith Kerinaua.
Kerinaua’s lawyers argued that their client, now 20, acted in self-defense.
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On Thursday, a Northern Territory Supreme Court jury took just five hours to find him guilty of murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence and a non-parole period of 20 years.
Relatives of both men screamed when the sentence was handed down – one in relief, the other in anger.
Laverty’s mother Samara broke down in tears before being comforted by her daughter-in-law and daughter.
The devastation of Kerinauya’s family was palpable before their distress prompted security to lock down the High Court.
One family member drove erratically across the Darwin courthouse lawns while another shouted “racist mother******”.
The same woman said the courts had locked up a “gentle giant” and there was “no justice for him or Kumanjai Walker”, referring to the Indigenous teenager fatally shot by an NT police officer in November 2019 during an attempted arrest.
However, Laverty said her family had received justice.
“He was just a 20-year-old boy at work and that’s what he died for. So now we have justice,” said Samara Laverty.
“The brutality of what he went through that night. The size of the fatal wound… I should have known he wasn’t suffering.
“But listening to the last triple 0 call, he not only suffered but died an agonizing death. And I’m so glad the jury saw that.
During the 10-day trial, the two men were said to have gotten into a verbal altercation before Kerinauya left the bottle shop in Darwin’s northern suburbs and returned with a knife.
In CCTV footage shown to the court, Laverty can be seen lunging at Kerinauya with a knife his mother had told him to “carry for protection”.
Kerinauaia then fatally stabbed Laverty in the chest.
He died in the back room of his work just after 9pm, texting his mother one last time: “I love you, I’ve been stabbed.”
Defense lawyer John Tippett QC said he respected the jury’s verdict but did not rule out an appeal.
The high-profile case was the catalyst for several changes to alcohol and gun laws in the Northern Territory.
Kerinauya will appear in court again for sentencing on June 28.
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