Maybe drugs or demon? Transgender ax attacker claims it was 'her body and not her' who attacked civilians
On Thursday, an Australian man who identifies as a transgender woman claimed she was either possessed by a demon or her mind was muddled with drugs when she attacked civilians at a 7-Eleven store with an ax last year. She goes on to say that therefore it was her body, and not her, that committed the heinous crime.
While 26-year-old Evie Amati does not deny she was physically present at the scene, she claims her mind was somewhere else.
On January 7, 2017, Amati assaulted two innocent people with an ax at the store. Shortly after the incident, the surveillance footage from the store was released by authorities. It showed the suspect attacking the two people and then swinging the ax twice at a man outside the store, who somehow managed to avoid his blows.
However, the deranged attacker has pleaded not guilty to six charges, which include two counts of "wounding with intent to murder."
Charles Waterstreet, Amati's lawyer, asked her in the court, "At that stage, had you any idea of the damage that you'd done to persons by your body's actions?" To this, the defendant blatantly responded, "No."
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, while the court had previously heard that Amati could not recollect the incident, she developed the drug and demon possession defense only on Thursday.
According to the current testimony of the transgender suspect, she claims to have smoked two joints on a balcony before the incident. She says that after leaving a failed first date, she heard voices whispered in her ear, and she just wanted to sleep. After smoking the first joint, Amati says the voices became louder and so, she lit another one to "sedate" himself.
"They stopped being whispers. They started being actual words," the suspect said. "I started seeing some of the violent visions I'd seen previously of me running at police with the ax and being shot dead."
According to her, she was crying and listening to her favorite song while rocking back and forth, desperately wanting the "experiment" to end.
The day after the attack, Amati's last memory before waking up, she says, was hearing the same voice while sitting on the balcony. It was the same voice "that had been telling me to kill and maim and inflict pain on people and start the rise of hell on earth."
"I recall everything going quiet and feeling that voice come inside me," the suspect said. From then onwards, her description of events turns absurd.
She confidently says that while her face was smiling, she could experience it without any control of the action. "I remember that smile, the smile that was not mine," she recalled. "A sinister smile that plastered my face that I couldn't control. And I black out."
Witness Nathan Wood said at the time that he saw a person in a 7-Eleven store raising an object over their head and swinging it hard.
"I saw a body on the floor and blood splatter," he said.
He then allegedly saw a woman leave the building "with a dripping ax" as a second body collapsed on the floor.
"She has locked eyes with me and crossed the street towards myself," Wood said.
"I realized she was intending to do harm, so I made a mad dash to the end of the block."
When Amati woke up shackled to a bed in St. Vincent's Hospital, surrounded by cops, she realized "something very, very bad had happened." Authorities later revealed to her that she was found unconscious near the 7-Eleven store and subsequently taken to the hospital.
She said that it was a "flippant comment" made by a custodial officer, about an ax, that led her to realize what "her body" had done. "It was the worst day of my life," she said.
"To think I'd put other people's lives in danger made me feel so ashamed of myself. They were innocent. They did nothing to deserve what happened," Amati said. "If I could take every one of those blows and put them on myself instead of someone else I would have done it a thousand times over."
She also said that she had prepared an apology to the victims, but her lawyer advised against it, saying it would prejudice the legal proceedings, reported Daily Mail.
Having said that, Amati had ingested a lot more than marijuana before the alleged attack. She testified that after smoking the joints, she drank vodka with a woman she met on Tinder and later took a pill of ecstasy with her and her roommate.
According to Amati, she slipped into a "depressive episode" after the girls began discussing her transgender identity and backed out of their previous plan to hit a bar. She reportedly left their vehicle midway and walked home.
It is widely known to crime enthusiasts in America that pleading insanity often leads to more lenient sentences and that are such attempts are quite common among criminals.
The trial is continuing before Judge Mark Williams.
This is a developing story. Check back for more updates.