The father of a carpenter murdered after a bitter love triangle has told of his heartbreak at losing his eldest son.
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Alfred Pettersson told the Newcastle Supreme Court on Friday how his son Daniel, 34, had been so happy to get the results of a DNA test proving he was the father of a little boy, and not his love rival, Kevin Smith.
"He was happiest he had ever been and felt complete," Mr Pettersson said of his son.
A Newcastle Supreme Court jury in September found Smith, 39, guilty of murdering Daniel Pettersson, after stabbing him once in the chest with a large hunting knife on January 6, 2022, at Jesmond.
Smith admitted stabbing Mr Pettersson but claimed it was self-defence.
The pair had been feuding since the woman they had both been seeing gave birth to a baby boy in 2020.
Both men believed they were father before Mr Pettersson took a paternity test to confirm he was the father.
"He [Daniel] told me a year or so before he was murdered that he may be the father of a little boy," Alfred Pettersson told the court on Friday when reading his victim impact statement.
"I told him not to fall in love until we had a DNA test done. I organised for the DNA test to be sent to Daniel. The result was 100 per cent positive that Daniel was the father."
Smith, who had been released on parole in November 2021, was with the woman, who was pregnant with Mr Pettersson's second child at the time, at the Michael Street house when Mr Pettersson pulled up outside about 3.34pm.
Mr Pettersson had called the woman 17 times and her father seven times as he wanted to see his son before deciding to drive to the woman's home.
The woman told Mr Pettersson, ''You can't be here", but he had seen Smith inside the house and pushed past the woman to confront him.
There was a confrontation in the kitchen between the two men before Mr Pettersson walked up the hallway and said, "He stabbed me".
The woman had seen the pair 'wrestling' in the kitchen and had to drag her large dog, which was trying to attack both of them, into a bedroom.
She heard Mr Pettersson call out her name and saw he was covered in blood.
She helped him outside and he told her, "If I die, I love you."
Mr Pettersson died at the scene.
His sister Natasha told the court on Friday her brother had been a good father who had only wanted to look after and protect his young son and unborn child.
"He did not deserve to be set upon with a hunting knife and be fatally injured," she said.
The two children are now being cared for by Mr Pettersson's parents.
Public Defender Peter Krisenthal told the court there was insufficient evidence to prove Smith, who was on the run for six days after the murder before his arrest, had intended to kill Mr Pettersson.
Mr Krisenthal said the fatal stabbing had been an "unplanned, spontaneous and reactionary event".
Justice Sarah McNaughton will sentence Smith, also known as Squids, on April 23.
Australian Associated Press
