Around 200 people gathered to remember Stephen Thorpe, a highly regarded scientist who was killed in Blockhouse Bay. Video / Dean Purcell
Auckland man found unfit to stand trial for the fatal stabbing of entomologist Stephen Thorpe.
The 27-year-old defendant, whose identity is suppressed, remains at the Mason Clinic.
Thorpe, described as a “gentle, eccentric scientist”, contributed significantly to entomology in New Zealand.
An Auckland man accused of fatally stabbing highly regarded entomologist Stephen Thorpe last August had previously confided in friends that he was “seeing things”, including the devil.
Details of his mental health history were publicly revealed for the first time in the High Court at Auckland today asthe 27-year-old defendant reappeared before Justice Graham Lang.
At a brief hearing last month, which had been suppressed until this afternoon, Judge Lang found the man unfit to stand trial. Most of the hearing remains suppressed, apart from the result.
At today’s hearing, the judge found that “on the balance of probabilities” the defendant killed Thorpe even though he can’t be found guilty because of his mental illness.
Defence lawyer Sam Wimsett, serving as standby counsel because the defendant has not been well enough to give him instructions, did not dispute the finding.
Thorpe was on his daily stroll, looking for bugs near the Blockhouse Bay Tennis Club, when he was killed.
“When he [the defendant] arrived at the tennis club, he must have encountered Mr Thorpe,” the judge said, adding that “it is not known what then happened”. Evidence indicates the man stabbed Thorpe before dropping the knife.
“I am therefore satisfied ... that [he] committed the act that caused Mr Thorpe’s death.”
Justice Lang reached his conclusion based on witness statements, crime scene evidence and photos, which the Crown would have submitted had the case gone to trial.
Stephen Thorpe's funeral was held at the Blockhouse Bay Tennis Club, where he spent nearly every day and where he was stabbed to death in August 2024. Photo / Dean Purcell
It included Thorpe’s apparent blood found on the defendant’s shoes and pants, CCTV footage that showed a man matching the defendant’s description walking to and from the scene and a bloody, partially opened knife found near a drain at the scene. It was engraved with an unusual name that the defendant was known to use online.
After today’s hearing, which lasted about 30 minutes and was attended remotely by Thorpe’s father from overseas, the defendant was returned to the Mason Clinic - a lockdown psychiatric facility where he has been since his arrest. A follow-up disposition hearing next month will determine whether he will be made a long-term special patient at the clinic.
Daylight attack
The defendant was arrested days after the daytime stabbing, which took place in the car park of the Blockhouse Bay Tennis Club as Saturday revellers enjoyed the facilities and the nearby reserve.
Police have never publicly suggested a motive for the seemingly random attack. The two men did not know each other personally.
Police pictured investigating the stabbing of scientist Stephen Thorpe near the Blockhouse Bay Tennis Club. Photo / Michael Craig.
Although it was a Saturday, Thorpe, 54, had been at work that day inside the Whau River Catchment Trust office, underneath the tennis club. He worked seven days a week, and always took a breather around 11.30am to go for a walk while scouring the area for bugs, an officemate previously told the Herald.
But as he went outside that day, cries for help were heard, Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin said in the days after the incident.
”The staff member witnessed the victim in a violent struggle and went to get a phone to call for help."
A doctor who happened to be at the club that day stepped in to help, but he couldn’t find a pulse. Thorpe was declared dead at the scene when paramedics arrived a short time later.
He was later determined to have died from blood loss after a single stab wound to the neck.
Residents in the area were unnerved when it was learned that the alleged killer lived nearby.
A former flatmate of the defendant described him to the Herald as someone who preferred to keep to himself, rarely engaging with others he lived with.
LSD and ‘bouts of anger’
Longtime friends of the defendant said his personality started to change around 2013, when he started regularly using drugs, including LSD and cannabis. By 2019, the regular drug use “was having a marked effect on him”, the judge said.
“[His] friends noticed that, by 2020, he had started to talk about ‘seeing things’, including the devil,” Justice Lang added. “He also displayed bouts of anger they had never seen before.”
By 2022, he became the subject of a compulsory treatment order due to his mental illness. The following year, he was described by those around him as acting erratically and seeming to experience hallucinations.
Police respond to the scene of Stephen Thorpe's death outside the Blockhouse Bay Tennis Club in Auckland. Photo / Dean Purcell
One friend who is now a police officer said the defendant had been known in the past to carry knives.
He recalled a text the defendant sent him one day in 2023 announcing a new name and saying his legal name “never really existed”.
The new name he gave matched the one etched on the knife that police found at the crime scene.
Police also found a vape at the scene, similar to ones found at the defendant’s home and with what appeared to be matching DNA.
‘Walking encyclopaedia’
Friends and colleagues of Thorpe described him as a gentle, eccentric scientist who lived and breathed his passion for entomology. He had no family in New Zealand but formed bonds through his research.
The former University of Auckland employee, who had degrees in chemistry and philosophy, spent about a decade working in the School of Biological Sciences laboratory. Although he had most recently worked out of the Whau River Catchment Trust office, he did not work for the agency, instead doing contract work for Landcare Research and other organisations.
He had contributed an estimated 12,000 insect specimens to Auckland Museum, where he volunteered in the 2000s, and nine new species had been named after him.
A funeral for Stephen Thorpe was held at the Blockhouse Bay Tennis Club. Photo / Dean Purcell
John Early, a former entomology curator at the museum, previously described Thorpe as having “a prodigious memory, particularly for all the scientific literature about New Zealand beetles”.
“His death is tragic and untimely, not just for its horrific circumstances but also that his valuable contribution to New Zealand entomology is now ended,” he said.
Such sentiments were echoed by others in the scientific community.
University of Auckland professor Jacqueline Beggs described Thorpe as a “walking encyclopaedia”, known for generously sharing his knowledge with students and for his “uncanny ability” to spot the most unusual and important insect specimens.
Gary Andrew, who worked beside Thorpe at the Blockhouse Bay office and who would later speak at his well-attended funeral at the tennis club, said his colleague and friend was best understood from the perspective of neurodiversity.
He often had a dishevelled appearance that led some people to mistakenly believe he was homeless. Thorpe had told friends in the years before his death that he suspected he was on the autism spectrum, the friend said.
“He was a small, slightly built, well-spoken, educated, gentle guy who would just never hurt a fly,” Andrew explained, adding that all of Thorpe’s possessions would probably have fitted in a small trundler.
”He was wanting of nothing," Andrew said at the funeral. “He was content. All he needed was his microscope.
”Stephen only wanted to be in a lab somewhere with insects and entomologists.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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