Brian Browning, who was convicted of stabbing his wife Catherine Browning fifteen times, has had his sentence extended after a successful appeal by the prosecution.
Browning was caught red-handed during the crime by his 20-year-old daughter, who heard her mother screaming for help and found her father standing nearby holding a bloody knife.
Despite this evidence, Browning pleaded not guilty before the Supreme Court of Victoria late last year, claiming he did not have the required intention for a murder conviction.
Instead, he blamed the brutal attack on the side effects of the over-the-counter sleeping pills he’d taken on the night.
Nine days before her murder, Browning’s wife had told him she was leaving him after 21 years of marriage. He claims her announcement left him worried about his financial future and unable to sleep, so he took four Restavit brand sleeping pills.
The court heard at trial that while the sleeping pills could cause hallucinations in very large quantities, the amount that Browning claims to have taken was unlikely to produce such an effect.
Brian Browning found guilty of the 2013 stabbing murder of his wife in their Skye home: http://t.co/a737Dh91vu #9News pic.twitter.com/3XMJ9w0JOA
— Nine News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) May 6, 2015
