Quadriplegic man who killed his lover and then severed his own spinal cord dies in prison
WOLLONGONG, SYDNEY: A man who slashed the throat of his lover and then severed his own spinal cord to render himself quadriplegic died while serving a 20-year jail sentence, a coroner revealed.
Michael James Quinn, 31, was serving a 20-year sentence for brutally stabbing his lover Cherie Vize to death on his parents’ lawn in Wollongong when he died at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney's east on April 1, 2020. His demise was unreported until deputy state coroner Carmel Forbes told the coroner's Court he died of sepsis.
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Forbes revealed Quinn, whose sentence was due to expire in 2035, died from sepsis with the underlying conditions of 'urosepsis and pneumonia as a result of C3 incomplete tetraplegia', the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
On the afternoon of April 1, 2020, after Quinn deteriorated, a nurse told police she took his hand and “told him that she was here with him”. She said he took two or three “gasping short breaths”. A doctor then declared Quinn’s life “extinct.”
“There is no evidence to suggest that any aspect of his medical care ... contributed to his death in any way,” the coroner said. An inquest will be conducted properly and independently into the custodial death of Quinn. The coronial findings, published on Wednesday, described the incident leading to Quinn’s imprisonment as “both tragic and traumatic”.
Howard Mullen, the advocate assisting the coroner, said, "Quinn suffered a catastrophic injury when he attempted to take his own life almost immediately after stabbing Vize in the neck outside his family home in July 2013."
Quinn was found guilty of the murder of her 25-year-old lover in 2016. The judge-alone court trial heard Quinn attacked Vize, who was a budding artist, on the lawn of his parent's house in Wollongong before slashing his own spinal cord. His attack on himself left him a quadriplegic in 2013. "Ms Vize was a peaceful person. Her passing has caused much sadness to her family and friends," NSW Supreme Court Justice Robert Beech-Jones said following a month-long trial.
After his trial in 2016, the officials found out that Quinn had incomplete quadriplegia, obesity, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and he was further diagnosed with conditions including obstructive sleep apnoea, osteoporosis, severe spasticity, and recurrent urinary tract infections.
The court heard that Quinn had a long criminal history. He was previously counseled for terrorizing a female student at the University of Wollongong and was involved in 17 “incidents” including intimidation, indecency, damaging property, disobeying direction, and assault.
