Jessica Grapsas was six months’ pregnant with her third child when the unimaginable happened.
She woke in the early hours of September 15, 2023, to the sound of a dog growling and realised her husband Paul wasn’t home from his late-night walk.
Mrs Grapsas tried calling and texting him but there was no response so she went out to see if his car was still parked on the street.
Instead, she found her husband’s dead body lying in a pool of blood.
“Paul’s precious life was taken and mine was shattered,” she told the Victorian Supreme Court on Monday.
Mrs Grapsas confronted her husband’s killer Bailey Clifford as the 20-year-old pleaded guilty to manslaughter, after initially being charged with murder.
Clifford had been trying to break into cars in Geelong on the evening of September 14 when he came across Mr Grapsas’ Mitsubishi.
He was rummaging through it when Mr Grapsas returned from his dog walk and confronted him.
During the altercation, the younger man produced a knife and stabbed Mr Grapsas seven times, including a fatal blow to the upper back.
He then stole a wallet and set of keys before leaving Mr Grapsas to die on the side of the road.
Mrs Grapsas said the image of her husband’s lifeless body haunted her and she could not understand why he died alone.
“How could you just leave him there?” she questioned Clifford.
“I have enormous guilt that I went to bed without ensuring he was safe.”
The couple already had two young daughters, aged four and two, and Mrs Grapsas was six months’ pregnant with their son when her husband died.
She was devastated their children would grow up without a father who adored them.
“My son will never know his father’s voice, his smell or his face,” she said through tears.
“Paul didn’t even know he would have a son.”
Clifford called his friend after leaving the scene, crying and saying he had “f***ed up” and killed someone.
The friend told him to hand himself in to police but Clifford refused, even trying to flee from officers when they came to arrest him four days later.
Clifford’s barrister Moya O’Brien said her client had been addicted to drugs and he reacted “spontaneously” when Mr Grapsas confronted him during an opportunistic theft.
“It’s accepted even if he thought he was acting in self-defence … he was clearly excessive, clearly dangerous and clearly unlawful,” she told the court.
The barrister said her client had pleaded guilty at an early stage and was truly remorseful, which was emphasised in an apology letter read by Clifford.
“I do regret it every day,” he told Mr Grapsas’ family and friends.
Ms O’Brien accepted Clifford had a criminal record and he was on a community corrections order at the time of the killing, but said he was still a young man.
She submitted he had good prospects of rehabilitation as he had stopped using drugs and had the support of his family.
Prosecutor Joanne Poole argued it was a serious example of manslaughter and Clifford had reacted excessively to an unarmed man.
It was also an aggravating feature that Clifford fled the scene instead of calling an ambulance, Ms Poole said.
“He’s done nothing – he left him half lying in the gutter,” the prosecutor said.
Justice Rita Incerti will sentence Clifford at a later date.
