A coroner has found that a 34-year-old man died from blood loss after being stabbed by a neighbour during an attempted break-in at a Mornington unit complex in 2020.
Coroner Simon Cooper’s newly published findings show Ashton Frederick Jones died from hypovolaemic shock after Caleb Adams stabbed him in the neck with a 35-centimetre kitchen knife on October 12 2020.
The incident occurred in the early hours when Jones approached Adams’s unit at Carbeen Street wearing socks on his hands.
Jones put his head through a broken kitchen window, prompting Adams to stab him with the knife.
“Mr Jones staggered away from the unit with blood spurting from his neck. He collapsed and died about 30 metres away from the window,” Cooper said in his findings.
The stabbing followed escalating tensions between Adams and neighbours. Two days earlier, Adams had assaulted another resident with a walking stick after a confrontation.
Adams’s windows were subsequently smashed in apparent retaliation.
On the night of the fatal incident, Adams had received threats from visitors to neighbouring units, including threats to “burn him out”.
He texted family members expressing suicidal thoughts before the confrontation.
After the stabbing, Adams first called police claiming self-defence, telling the operator: “What else was I supposed to do?”
An autopsy revealed Jones had a 6.2-centimetre stab wound that severed major blood vessels and punctured his lung.
Toxicology tests showed methamphetamine in Jones’s system at fatal levels, though this was not the cause of death.
Adams was charged with murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter in June 2024, receiving a six-year prison sentence.
The court heard at the time Jones had planned to steal Adams’s television and was not involved in the earlier threats.
Cooper found no issues requiring recommendations, suggesting the death resulted from the specific circumstances rather than broader failures in mental health services or police response.
