Clayton Weatherston is one of New Zealand’s most brutal killers – jailed for life for stabbing his defenceless ex-girlfriend Sophie Elliot 216 times and mutilating her dead body in the bedroom of her family home.
He later blamed her for his extreme violence, mounting a defence of provocation during his murder trial.
The former Otago University lecturer was jailed for life and yesterday, 18 years and 22 days after Sophie’s death, he made his first appearance before the Parole Board.
At the hearing, the board heard about Weatherston’s time in prison – and why one of his biggest supporters wants him to stay inside.
Senior crime and justice reporter Anna Leask attended the hearing.
Clayton Robert Weatherston has been a model prisoner.
He is “pleasant and respectful”.
He works in catering.
He reads – logging 1000 hours so far, “pursuing self-examination” to “improve capacity to build close relationships” and “how to control emotional reactions”.
And in the 5981 days between his sentencing and his first appearance before the Parole Board, he has not racked up a single misconduct.
“Which takes some doing,” his principal Corrections officer stated.
But good behaviour behind bars does not earn anyone a ticket to freedom.
“No offender is entitled to be released on parole – you have to earn it,” retired High Court judge and current Parole Board chair Jan-Marie Doogue told the killer yesterday.
“You are eligible for parole … and now in the rehabilitation phase, which can take a long time depending on your willingness and engagement.”
Weatherston said he was “a bit anxious” about his first hearing – but appeared relaxed and spoke at length about himself and his thoughts on his situation throughout.
His trademark long locks are now much shorter, parted to the side.
He wore a tight-fitting grey prison T-shirt and shorts paired with Crocs and crew socks.
He looked healthy, fit and muscular. Not a day older than when he was jailed for life.
Another thing that has not changed is his eloquence – his academic background patently clear through his choice of language and phrasing.
“People go on about my intellect, and I just think I’m a battler,” Weatherston said when his articulation was noted by the board.
A day before seeing Weatherston, the board met with some closest to Sophie Elliott, including her father, Gil.
“They have only one clear message to give to you through us, and that is they do not consider that you are safe and they do not consider that you should be released into the community and should not be granted parole,” said Doogue.
“You have a long row to hoe.”
Weatherston’s own loved ones agreed.
Four of his most unwavering supporters attended the hearing, bringing the killer to tears as they spoke.
They cannot be named, but what they told the Parole Board can be reported.
“We’re as shaken as everyone else by what happened,” said one.
Another described Weatherston at the time of the trial and sentencing as “pig-headed and non-emotional”.
“Eighteen years later, there has been a lot of change, growth and development,” he said.
“But he still has a long way to go … he is trying to better himself … I know he is trying.
“We can’t go back … It’s rehab and treatment.”
Another recalled the “Claty” she knew before the murder as “a gentle, gentle boy”.
“We never saw this coming,” she told the board.
“I never thought this could ever happen.
“But things happen … and as long as I am alive, Clayton will always have my support.”
She acknowledged that if Weatherston was ever granted parole, he would need a lot of help outside prison to ensure he did not reoffend.
She vowed to be available every day if necessary to check in with him and make sure he stayed on the right path.
“I will always stand by him until I am no longer on this earth,” she said.
“I have your back 150%.”
Three psychologists provided reports about Weatherston to the board ahead of the hearing.
The reports referred to his diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder – specifically characterised as “gross narcissism”.
They also mentioned “psychopathy” and categorised Weatherston as being a high risk of reoffending.
Weatherston said he was “not convinced” by the diagnosis as it “overlooked” other positive and pro-social aspects of his personality.
“I don’t subscribe to the severe narcissistic personality disorder opined by [one psychologist in particular],” he told the board.
“I think that the severity of the narcissism in one of the reports is seriously overstated.”
He said his personality issues were “deeply and fundamentally rooted” in his feelings of self-worth.
And he claimed that “autism of some degree of neurodivergence” was at play and needed to be further examined.
Weatherston was challenged during the hearing about his recall of the murder and violent incidents involving Elliott before she died, and another ex-girlfriend.
It was put to him that his accounts of violence within his intimate relationships – which had “differed” over time – were “distorted” and his memories were “not entirely accurate”.
“I think there’s probably an element of recollecting things more favourable to myself than less favourable,” he agreed.
“I could have acted differently to what I did at the time. I’m certainly open to reviewing things and looking at things in a different way … nothing is set in stone.”
Weatherston claimed he had “flashbacks, recollections and nightmares” about murdering Elliott and a “high degree of anxiety and distress and shame”.
He was triggered “in everyday life” by comments made to him by other inmates or “the mention of certain words” and had “intrusive thoughts” when he was alone in his cell.
He was asked directly to explain why he mutilated Elliott’s body after he had killed her by stabbing her 216 times.
“With Sophie, a lot of things were going on in the relationship ... I was full of an uncontrollable rage,” he said.
“I think my offending was alleviating the sense of frustration in the internal world I created for myself, my distress and negative thought process around that.
“It was just a really inarticulate, brutal and visceral way of wiping someone out, who you feel at the time has hurt you in every way possible.”
He told the board he was “embarrassed” by his actions.
“I’m concerned by the primal urges and impulsive aspects of that,” he said.
“Reflecting some more, it was just an ‘f you’ about everything about her, and about that I’m ashamed. It was incredibly misguided.
“I didn’t know how I felt. I couldn’t acknowledge how angry I was.”
Weatherston asserted himself as “a bit of a battler” and “a warrior” and said he was determined to work with the psychologists to address his offending and issues.
In his thousand hours of reading he had come across a book with a message that was helping him navigate his “post-offending” life.
“S*** happens, and we have to drop anchor and deal with it,” he mused.
At the beginning of the hearing, Weatherston’s lawyer told the board he was not actually seeking parole.
Rather, the hearing was more of a starting point for his rehabilitation.
He will reappear before the board in November 2027, where his progress will be assessed.
Doogue said before then, Weatherston must work with psychologists on “responsivity barriers, narcissism and neurodiversity”.
“Amongst other dynamic factors,” she said.
“This work will take quite some time.”
Sophie’s father Gil Elliott shared his submission with the Herald – saying he wanted the panel to understand “how awful Clayton Robert Weatherston is”.
“As a narcissist [he] is never likely to change his ways – is incapable, in fact, of changing his ways,” he said in the submission, which he penned on what should have been his daughter’s 40th birthday last year.
“He might have been a reasonable prisoner … but prison is not the outside world.”
Elliott has always believed Weatherston’s sentence was “manifestly inadequate”.
“Clayton Weatherston ruined our family; he took any pleasure that I had in my job away, and every minute of every day since, I think of Sophie, how much I miss her and what she might have become in life,” he said in his submission.
“One minute she was alive, the next she was dead. It literally happened that quickly, that suddenly. The light of our lives was extinguished forever.
“How unbelievable that an innocent young woman with her whole life ahead of her is dead … That was the beginning of our nightmare that lasts to this day.”
Elliott was at work 200km away from his family home when Sophie was murdered, and he found out when the police arrived at his office.
“Not only did he stab and cut her 216 times, including almost cutting her heart in two and meticulously stabbing her multiple times in each eye, but there were several unexplained blunt force injuries,” he said.
“Lesley remembers seeing briefly into Sophie’s room and described it to me as a pale Sophie in a sea of red … the pathologist described what happened to Sophie as a ‘frenzied, focused, deliberate and intentional attack’.
“Clayton came up to our place to kill Sophie, and he did just that. Clayton Weatherston destroyed Sophie, our family and her friends and probably destroyed his own family in the process.“
He felt strongly that Weatherston was “not only unpredictable but dangerous”.
“He showed absolutely no emotion or indication to the arresting police officer in Sophie’s bedroom, while covered in Sophie’s blood and with Sophie lying dead on the floor, that he had a care in the world.”
Elliott submitted that Weatherston “should never come out of prison” and would “never show true remorse”.
“After all, in his eyes ‘she deserved it’,” he said.
“Why otherwise would he have … pleaded provocation?
“Please do not give this murderer parole … and I respectfully ask you to consider delaying the next hearing for three to five years.”
The case will feature in an upcoming episode of Herald podcast A Moment In Crime.
Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 20 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz