Photo: New South Wales District Court
A transgender woman swung at two people with an axe after hearing voices telling her to kill people.
The New South Wales District Court heard today (19 July) Evie Amati walked into a 7-Eleven in the Sydney suburb of Enmore, Australia in the early hours of 7 January 2017.
She proceeds to have a conversation with a customer waiting in line, before striking him in the face with an axe.
Amati also strikes a woman trying to leave the convenience store, as well as a man on the street – who manages to shield himself with his bag.
Photo: The Joneses / Flickr
The 26-year-old woman claims she completely blacked out and doesn’t remember a thing.
She told the court there was a voice in her head telling her to kill people and ‘start the rise of hell on Earth,’ reports Buzzfeed.
An ‘extremely anxious’ Uber journey
Amati’s testimony also revealed she felt uncomfortable and ‘extremely anxious’ in an Uber ride earlier that night.
She was sharing an Uber with people she met that night and said a woman started complimenting her about being ‘brave’ and ‘beautiful’.
She said: ‘It was completely unprompted – there wasn’t any context to what she said.
‘To me, it struck me that she had identified me as trans and… she admired me for my strength, or whatever.
‘My mind instantly went to the fact that obviously they had talked about it while I was in the bathroom and came to that conclusion together. I instantly started feeling extremely anxious in the car,’ she recounted.
She also claims she mistakenly touched one of the women in the car, who then ‘recoiled’.
‘Not as a natural readjustment, but as if she was burnt,’ Amati said. ‘As if she’s touched a leper, someone who’s infected.’
She started to shut down and feel like she was entering a depressive episode, so she asked to get out of the car and began walking home.
A voice told me to ‘kill, maim, inflict pain on people’
While walking home, she started to hear voices. Her vision also narrowed and dark thoughts entered her mind.
When she got home, she started smoking cannabis to calm herself down but it started getting worse.
Then, she said: ‘That voice that had been telling me to kill, maim, inflict pain on people and start the rise of hell on Earth.
‘I recall everything going quiet and feeling that voice come inside and I remember that smile. The smile that was not mine.
‘A sinister smile that plastered my face that I couldn’t control, and I black out,’ she said.
(Warning: video contains violent graphic content)
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She said she cannot remember anything from the evening after blacking out.
Amati pleaded not guilty to six charges, including two of wounding or causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder.
Her barrister is arguing she was experiencing mental illness at the time.
The trial continues.
H/T Buzzfeed
