Historical report Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Melbourne: Man Found Not Guilty by Reason of Mental Impairment Ordered to Psychiatric Hospital (Sentencing, April 26, 2016)
On April 26, 2016, a Victorian Supreme Court judge ordered that a 21-year-old man, found not guilty of murder because of mental impairment, be held for a nominal 25 years at Victoria's maximum-security psychiatric hospital. A 42-year-old homeless man died in a stabbing beside the Yarra River in January 2014. His death is the story.
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On April 26, 2016, a Victorian Supreme Court judge ordered that a 21-year-old man, found not guilty of murder because of mental impairment, be held for a nominal 25 years at Victoria's maximum-security psychiatric hospital. A 42-year-old homeless man died in a stabbing beside the Yarra River in January 2014. His death is the story.
The ABC reports that the man had been diagnosed with first-stage psychosis and paranoid schizophrenia, and that the judge ordered a review in 15 months. The Age says a jury in November 2015 accepted he did not know his act was wrong. He had waited about five months in prison for a hospital bed.
The werewolf element is part of the man's delusions as described in court. The ABC says he thought he was a "vampire-chasing werewolf"; the Age says he believed he was the son of a werewolf. At the November 2015 trial the Age quoted a Crown psychiatrist who said she did not see how a belief about his father being a werewolf would lead him to attack someone else; she thought he knew what he was doing. The jury preferred the defence evidence.
The sources disagree on the date of the killing: 9News and AAP say January 4, The Age says January 5, and the ABC says only January 2014. No creature is claimed, and neither man is named here.
Sources
Original typographic cover — Monstrum Athenaeum.