Scot Phillips has been remembered as a “10 out of 10” friend after he was lured outside his Adelaide and killed in a “furious” premeditated attack.
The 19-year-old returned to his home on Carey Avenue in Seaton last night after earlier spending time at Seaton Hotel.
His power was switched off just before 10.20pm, causing him to go outside and investigate.
Major Crime Investigation Superintendent Des Bray said that act “lured” Phillips outside, where “he was immediately set upon by at least one person”.
Bray said the attacker “unleashed a furious attack on the victim” in his front garden.
“It’s fair to say this was a pre-planned attack,” Bray said.
“The knife was obviously something quite large. We know that from the injuries.
“It was clear from the wounds he suffered it was a deliberate attempt to kill him.”
He said Phillips was stabbed several times, including in the stomach, by at least one attacker, who fled on foot the same way he arrived at the property – south along Fiddock Avenue.
“I just heard this blood-curdling scream from a kid, it was a boy, and he wanted to get in his own house,” witness Jason Robertson told 9News.
His friends, police and paramedics did what they could but he died at the scene.
CCTV showed a hooded figure walking away from the home moments after the attack and dropping an object into a bin.
Police later recovered a knife from that bin and it is being forensically tested. It is one of a number of potential weapons found in their searches.
Phillips’ heartbroken friends paid tribute this afternoon.
“He was just an all-round 10 out of 10 guy, not someone who deserved that,” friend Ryan Holmes told 9News.
“It’s just broken a lot of people’s hearts today waking up to see that news that his life was taken and he has passed at such a young age with so much potential left in him to make something of himself.”
When fronting media this afternoon, Bray said police had today attended a house in Hectorville and arrested a 19-year-old for possessing a shotgun and ammunition.
He said police believed the Hectorville man “might be a person of interest” in the murder, but that there was no evidence of him being involved.
“We are also pursuing a number of other open lines of investigation.”
Bray said police had not come across a potential motive.
Bray said people who were in the house and tried to help Phillips were cooperating with police.
He confirmed Phillips and two friends attended the Seaton Hotel earlier in the evening, but said that was not necessarily related to the attack.
Major Crime officers, crime scene investigators and Western District detectives attended the scene overnight.
Carey Avenue was closed for several hours but later reopened.
Bray called for anyone in the vicinity of Carey Avenue at the time of the incident, specifically several drivers and a scooter rider caught on CCTV, or anyone with dash-cam or CCTV footage from the area, to contact Crime Stoppers.
