Suicidal killer previously attacked Kiwi partner

Caryl Ussher tells all on '60 Minutes' tonight. Photo / 60 Minutes

A Kiwi man who stabbed a young Melbourne woman to death in a murder-suicide attacked his former partner in similar circumstances just before fleeing New Zealand.

Neil Chapman abducted 22-year-old shop assistant Stacy Ramadge during her lunch break in February last year.

Her body was found with multiple stab wounds in Chapman's home less than an hour after she left work.

Three weeks before Chapman moved to Australia in 2009, he attacked his former-partner, Caryl Ussher, and confided he wanted to murder her and then commit suicide.

Ussher told 60 Minutes reporter Sarah Hall she was too traumatised to report the attack to police immediately, and now blamed herself in part for Ramadge's death.

"That's one of the biggest regrets I've got, about not going to the police that night, because I think things would have been different had I gone."

But she also blamed the police for mishandling her case and, as a result, Chapman slipped through the net.

60 Minutes on TV3 at 7 o'clock tonight.