Woman’s hand turned ‘black’ after a snowflake implant, court hears

WARNING: Graphic

A mother has recalled the horror at seeing a gaping “yellow and green” wound on her daughter’s hand after she had a silicon snowflake implanted under her skin by a NSW body modifier.

Just three days later the young woman was dead, allegedly from septicaemia.

The trial of Brendan Leigh Russell, the man who implanted the snowflake and is charged with the woman’s manslaughter, has heard the deceased woman thought of him as a “God”.

Her mother told a court she observed her daughter’s hand had turned “black” after she died.

The woman’s mother, who can’t be identified, told the Downing Centre District Court she was horrified when her daughter revealed she’d had the snowflake implant in March 2017.

She said the snowflake was “so big” and her daughter appeared embarrassed at her mother’s reaction.

On April 9, 2017 the court heard the woman came for dinner at her mother’s house.

While they were sitting outside on the balcony eating crackers and dip, the woman leaned forward and accidentally revealed the hand wound hidden under a loose fitting cardigan.

“I could see this yellow and green incision. Clearly there was no stitches in it,” her mother told the court on Thursday.

“I said, ‘Oh my god … your hand, it’s infected!’

“She said, ‘It’s OK mum. I’m seeing Brendan tomorrow, he’s going to clean it’.”

The court heard the woman called her mother the next day to say the hand had bled profusely when she had gone to Mr Russell’s Erina studio to have the snowflake repositioned and her wound cleaned.

“She said, ‘I’ve never seen so much blood’,” her mother told the court.

The next day, on April 11, 2017, the woman’s mother said she became worried when her daughter was not answering her phone.

When she did, the court heard, her voice sounded childlike and she seemed to be “off with the fairies”.

The woman had forgotten her mother and stepfather had been in Sydney for a close family friend’s funeral.

“She just said, ‘Oh, Mum I forgot. What’s wrong with me?’,” the court heard.

“I said, ‘What’s going on, Darling? You sound really strange. I’m coming over, I’m worried about you.”

The woman told her mother she was feeling tired as she hadn’t slept for three days due to migraines and a sore hand, her mother told the court.

The next morning she received a call from her daughter’s phone but when she answered it was a screaming neighbour on the other end of the line.

She and her husband rushed over to her daughter’s flat to find the neighbour performing CPR.

They all took turns trying to revive the woman while waiting for an ambulance to arrive, even though it seemed she had been dead for hours, the court heard.

“No one gave up,” her mother said.

“(Her) left ear was blue, her lips were blue. Her right hand, her fingers were nearly black.”

She said her daughter was a body modification enthusiast but Mr Russell was the only one she trusted to carry out her multiple procedures.

Her daughter once told her Mr Russell had urged her to have her nipples tattooed into the shape of love hearts because “no one had done it before”, the court heard.

The witness recalled how on one occasion in 2016 her daughter said Mr Russell had claimed he would “go to jail” if anyone found out about a procedure he’d done at a recent expo.

Mr Russell’s lawyer, Michal Mantaj, asked the witness if she was angry with his client.

“This is about justice for my daughter,” she replied.

The judge-alone trial continues.