In a chilling self-recorded video, Daniel Billings confessed, “I just killed my ex-girlfriend,” moments after fatally stabbing her with a hunting knife.
For months, Billings, 30, had been harassing and threatening to kill his former partner, Molly Ticehurst, 28. In April 2024, she sought protection through an apprehended violence order.
Molly, a mother to a five-year-old boy, reported that Billings had raped her, intimidated her, broken her car window, and even killed her dachshund puppy.
She recounted to police that Billings, a tradesman, frequently detailed how he planned to murder her, including sneaking into her bedroom while she slept.
“I will come in the middle of the night… I will get to you if that is the last thing I do,” Molly recalled Billings’ menacing threats to the authorities.
“The police won’t stop me; I will reach you faster than they will,” she quoted him, conveying the ominous nature of his warnings.
At 11.27pm on April 21, 2024, Billings did just that, according to a 17-page statement of agreed facts tendered to the Local Court.
It took exactly 59 seconds for him to break into Ms Ticehurst’s home, stab her 15 times with a hunting knife and then return to his car.
Mother and childcare worker Molly Ticehurst was stabbed to death on April 21, 2024
Her ex-boyfriend, Daniel Billings, plead guilty to her murder on Friday
Ms Ticehurst’s white coffin is seen at her funeral on May 2, 2024
Just six weeks before the beloved childcare worker was murdered, she texted a friend a chilling message: ‘If I end up dead, he 100 per cent did it’.
Billings’ frenzied path of physical and psychological violence was revealed in court for the first time on Friday, after he pleaded guilty to Ms Ticehurst’s murder in her Forbes home in central western NSW.
The 30-year-old, who is in custody in the supermax wing at Goulburn jail, also admitted four other charges including breaching an apprehended violence order, property damage and animal cruelty.
The killer recorded a series of videos in the lead-up and in the aftermath of Ms Ticehurst’s murder.
At 2.09pm, he was recorded saying: ‘I don’t know what I am going to do tonight but nothing f***ing good … I will not let anyone or anything stop me tonight’.
Three hours later, Billings expressed plans to Ms Billings for a drive later that evening. At 10.35pm, he left his home in Parkes and travelled to her home in Forbes.
At 11.27pm, Billings entered her bedroom window and stabbed her 15 times with a hunting knife, before leaving just one minute later.
‘I just murdered my ex-girlfriend,’ he was recorded saying.
‘(I) cannot believe I just did that.’
Ms Ticehurst is survived by her five-year-old son
Billings’ frenzied path of physical and psychological violence was revealed in court for the first time on Friday, after he pleaded guilty to Ms Ticehurst’s murder
The following morning, Billings turned up on a friend’s doorstep drinking rum.
Court documents state he told two friends: ‘I’ve killed her’.
One of the friends called triple-zero and told the operator: ‘I’ve got a man named Daniel Billings here, he’s in the system and he’s just turned up at our house to say that he’s killed someone’.
Billings would later tell police he killed Ms Ticehurst’s puppy with a hammer soon after she broke up with him in June 2023.
Another 12 charges, including several sexual assault and stalking offences, were dropped in exchange for the murder plea.
Billings, who appeared on-screen wearing prison greens with dreadlocked hair and a small moustache, appeared calm as his Legal Aid solicitor confirmed the pleas.
Ms Ticehurst, 28, became the face of a growing national movement against domestic and gendered violence, particularly as Billings was free on bail when he killed her.
A local court registrar had granted bail a fortnight before the murder, despite Billings facing several counts of raping Ms Ticehurst and other domestic violence offences.
Ms Ticehurst became the face of a growing national movement against domestic and gendered violence, particularly as Billings was free on bail when he killed her
Her murder sparked changes to NSW laws, including stripping registrars of the power to grant bail, ‘show cause’ thresholds for domestic violence-related bail applications and electronic monitoring for accused people.
The pleas came more than 18 months after Billings was charged with murder, following lengthy legal negotiations and a string of adjournments.
About 50 Forbes locals gathered in the park outside the courthouse to support the Ticehurst family, some wearing t-shirts saying: ‘She Matters’.
The crowd burst into applause as Ms Ticehurst’s family emerged from the court after the plea.
Her bereaved father Tony became emotional when asked how he would remember his daughter.
‘I would break down trying to tell you,’ he told reporters.
The matter was adjourned for arraignment in the NSW Supreme Court on December 12.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
Lifeline 13 11 14
Men’s Referral Service 1300 766 491
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
