A Victorian mother has appeared in court after being charged with the alleged murder of her partner in a Ballarat suburb on the weekend.
Cheryl Lucas, 38, was arrested just before 8am on Saturday after allegedly stabbing Heath Speedie, 47, in the chest as he sat on the sofa of their home in Mount Helen.
Mr Speedie staggered outside before collapsing on the lawn where emergency services desperately tried to save his life.
Ms Lucas was charged with one count of murder after her arrest, and according to the Herald Sun she called police herself and a knife was seized as evidence.
A young child was inside the house at the time of the alleged stabbing.
Ms Lucas sat silently in Ballarat Magistrates Court during a hearing on Monday where the court heard the matter was a “family violence homicide” and her lawyer asked for her client to be given a mental health assessment after being transferred to prison, The Age reported.
She did not apply for bail, and will appear in court again on April 15.
A neighbour said the couple, who had been together for a decade, kept to themselves like most other residents of the quiet street.
“There’s not a lot of interaction but they seemed OK, nothing out of the ordinary I wouldn’t think,” Doug Mills said.
“We would see each other, we would wave or acknowledge them, and that was about the extent of it really.
“Their house, diagonally, is about 40-odd metres away from our place. And from what I could determine, they kept pretty much to themselves, like most of us in this particular street.”
Header image: Left, Cheryl Lucas. Right, Heath Speedie (Facebook)
