Two hours after Daniel Billings murdered his ex-girlfriend Molly Ticehurst in a frenzied stabbing, he spoke to a woman he had met on Tinder. "I'm sorry I murdered her," Billings told the woman during a phone call at 2.02am on 22 April 2024.
The woman, who Billings met on the dating app in early 2022, told police she was shocked as he described the murder during their brief conversation. "In an ideal world, what I wanted to do was go over there and talk to her, but she started screaming and I did what I did," Billings said, according to her statement tendered to his New South Wales supreme court sentencing hearing.
Billings made the phone call from a mutual friend's property, where he had fled in his bloodied clothes, according to a statement of facts. The friend soon alerted police, the court heard.
Murder details and guilty plea
Billings, a former mine worker, has pleaded guilty to stabbing Molly Ticehurst 15 times after breaking into her bedroom at her Forbes home just before midnight on 21 April. The 31-year-old is facing a two-day sentencing hearing in Orange that was expected to conclude on Friday.
Billings had been released on bail by a local court registrar a fortnight before the murder. He was charged with a series of sexual assault and domestic violence offences against 28-year-old Molly. As soon as he learned of her allegations of repeated rapes, Billings adamantly denied the crimes and developed a twisted obsession with clearing his name, the court has been told.
Recorded footage and expert testimony
Thursday's hearing heard 90 minutes of footage that Billings recorded before and after the murder, in which he repeatedly claimed to have been wrongly accused of rape. Even as Molly Ticehurst lay dead in her pyjamas, he continued to claim he was a victim of injustice. "I can't believe I just did that," he said in a video recorded immediately after the stabbing. Billings was then seen raising a bloodied hand to his face as he drove away also appearing to retch. "I don't know why she accused me of rape, I don't know what her game plan was."
The videos appeared to allude to a plan that he would take his own life after killing Molly. Forensic psychiatrist Olav Nielssen, engaged by the defence team, told the court many of the recordings could be interpreted as "goodbye videos" and that Billings was suffering significant depression.
But Prof David Greenberg, the crown's expert, told the court that Billings' threats of suicide could also be interpreted in the context of his months of domestic abuse against Molly. "Several times he threatens the victim and her family," Greenberg told the court on Friday. "The acts of domestic violence have the context of these suicide threats."
Legal proceedings and victim impact
The sexual assault charges were ultimately dropped when Billings pleaded guilty to murder in November 2025 after 18 months of legal negotiations. Billings listened to the proceedings on Friday in an elevated wooden dock, often leaning down to stare at the floor. He occasionally shook his head.
The court heard victim impact statements from Molly's family on Thursday. "When she died, part of me died with her," her father, Tony Ticehurst, said. Justice Natalie Adams has indicated she would sentence Billings later in September.
