EXCLUSIVE
The grieving family of a mum who died after trying to stop a wild street brawl have barely left their home in the wake of her alleged murder, as she is remembered as ‘the life and soul of the party’.
Kristie McBride, 39, was stabbed in the head and torso during an alleged fight between two groups of girls outside her sister’s home in Warrawong, in the NSW Illawarra region south of Sydney, on November 22 last year.
She died in Wollongong Hospital 10 days after the alleged attack.
A 15-year-old girl was initially charged with murder following Ms McBride’s death.
A total of six teenage girls aged from 13 to 17 were charged in relation to the brawl, with three recently having additional murder charges laid.
The victim’s sister, Carly McBride, who was also charged for her alleged role in the fight, said that the family is still barely able to come to terms with what happened nearly nine months on.
‘None of us have left the house since it happened. I can’t even get my kids out of their rooms,’ Ms McBride told Daily Mail .
Ms McBride, 37, revealed her sister’s death was the latest in a long list of tragedies to afflict their family.
Her brother Kyle was killed in 2001 after being hit by a car and their mother died on Christmas Day in 2022 from lung disease – both events bringing the two sisters close to one another.
‘We did everything together,’ Ms McBride said.
‘We were really close.’
Kristie’s eldest daughter is not eligible for compensation from Victim Services NSW because she was 18 at the time of her mother’s death.
Her aunt has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for her future.
‘She doesn’t sleep, she doesn’t eat. She’s going through a really tough time,’ Ms McBride added.
The grieving sister also said the family had been shunned by the community in the months since the tragedy.
‘No one’s really bothered with us at all. Friends have pretty much disappeared,’ she added.
‘We have stuck to ourselves. All I can put it down to is it happened when my brother died, too.
‘People don’t want to be sad. They don’t know how to speak to somebody. What do you say? They avoid it instead.’
Ms McBride has since moved to the same street as her orphaned nieces in Warilla, a suburb of Shellharbour.
She said her sister was a ‘wonderful person’.
‘She was just so bubbly and energetic – the life and soul of the party,’ Ms McBride said.
‘She’d do anything for anybody she loved, she would be right there. If they needed her, she’d be there.
‘She was a great mother who did everything for those kids.’
Ms McBride will front court in October after being charged with affray and intent to commit an indictable offence.
She previously pleaded not guilty to both charges.
The events of November 22 last year still haunt Ms McBride and her remaining family.
The confrontation was triggered by an alleged cyber bullying incident involving one of Ms McBride’s young relatives and a fight between two groups of teenage girls was allegedly organised on social media the night before.
A gang of four teenage girls allegedly arrived armed with knives and threatened to stab one of Ms McBride’s young relatives.
The brawl would see the group of four teenage girls now charged with murder, take on another group, including two 17-year-old girls also currently before the courts.
‘They all had knives and said they were going to stab her in the throat,’ a relative told Daily Mail at the time.
‘(Ms McBride) then ran out and they (allegedly) stabbed her on the driveway.
‘They were here for five seconds and they (allegedly) stabbed her and ran down the road.’
After becoming aware of threats in the group chat, Carly McBride asked her sister to come over ‘so she felt safer’, according to court documents.
The agreed facts state after the four teenage girls arrived with other young people, Carly McBride wielded a metal baseball bat while a teenager at a Warrawong home was armed with a piece of timber.
The subsequent brawl was filmed on two mobile phones.
One of the teenagers was allegedly struck by Carly McBride with a baseball bat, before Kristie McBride approached another girl.
The facts stated the 15-year-old girl allegedly ‘swung the knife at Kristie McBride’s head, causing a 6cm laceration to the left parietal scalp and 2 centimetre laceration to the left forehead.’
Kristie McBride was then allegedly stabbed in the stomach twice.
The agreed facts stated as she started to walk away from the scene of the brawl, she said, ‘That little c*** stabbed me.’
Last month, a Magistrate presiding over the sentencing of one of those involved in the altercation said Ms McBride’s death had a ‘profound effect on all those involved’.
‘It is a terribly tragic incident and all people involved bear responsibility of what happened,’ the Magistrate added.