The man accused of murdering five people by setting a Wellington hostel on fire said he was being controlled by spirits, and voices told him to burn the place down.
The court also heard he had been convicted of attempted arson in 1996.
The 50-year-old defendant is on trial in the High Court at Wellington on five charges of murder and two of arson.
He does not dispute lighting the fire that killed Mike Wahrlich, Liam Hockings, Peter O’Sullivan, Melvin Parun and Kenneth Barnard at Loafers Lodge on May 16, 2023. His defence team is arguing he was insane at the time.
A psychiatrist has noted it was “unusual” for auditory hallucinations to provide such specific commands as the defendant said he received, and noted there were aspects of his claims that he felt indicated he was not legally insane at the time.
Dr Justin Barry-Walsh gave evidence on Wednesday, describing multiple interviews he had with the defendant, who has interim name suppression, in the months after the fire.
He described the man’s mental health improving slowly over several months as he continued receiving treatment for his diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia.
In one interview, the man finally spoke to the psychiatrist about what happened the night of the fire, describing how he had believed people were outside his bedroom door at the hostel waiting to come in and possibly attack him, and that voices in his head told him this was the case.
The man, who regularly suffered persecutory delusions, said he was angry and wondered why people would spit in his food and steal his belongings.
“[He] asked himself how he could stop [the perceived harassment] from happening ... [he] said the voices told him to burn the place down.”
The man then told Barry-Walsh about lighting a fire under a couch in the lounge, then going outside to wait. He said the voices told him to go back and check whether there was a fire, and he discovered it had been extinguished.
“The voices told him tonight is the night ... so he went and lit another fire.”
The defendant “said he was being controlled as if by spirits and they were telling him to light another fire”, Barry-Walsh said.
“The voices said there was only one way for this to end.”
The man told the doctor that voices then instructed him to set alight blankets in a wardrobe, which he did. He “said he wanted ‘the place to burn so they would stop doing this’”.
Barry-Walsh said the defendant told him he didn’t want to light the fire, but that the voices overpowered him.
Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop said for the defendant to claim a defence of insanity, he needed to show he had a disease of the mind that at the time rendered him incapable of knowing his actions were morally wrong, based on commonly accepted standards.
It is accepted by the man’s legal team that he understood the nature and quality of his actions, which is the other branch of an insanity defence.
Barry-Walsh said that from his interview with the defendant, if he took the man’s comments at face value, it might appear the man did not know his actions were morally wrong, but some of what he said stood out.
For one, the witness said, it was “unusual” for the voices to be so specific in their commands, down to instructions of what materials to use to light the fire.
“The specificity is unusual or atypical,” he said.
Barry-Walsh also noted that, despite the man’s extensive clinical history, he had never before reported voices commanding him to do anything.
“This is the first time that he’s given me an account of any connection between the psychosis and schizophrenia and his actions at the time of the alleged offending,” he said.
He felt the man’s comments that he didn’t want to light the fire, and also references to wishing he hadn’t done it because it might have killed people, indicated he was aware his actions were morally wrong.
In earlier interviews, when Barry-Walsh noted the man appeared more unwell, the man said he did not believe people had died in the fire and that police were framing him.
Yesterday, the court also heard the defendant had absconded from hospital just a few weeks before lighting the fatal fire.
He had been hospitalised for schizophrenia relapses eight times in his life before the fire, including in a mental health facility in Auckland in March and April 2023.
He absconded during an unescorted trip from the facility in late April, stopped taking his medication, and moved down to Wellington, where he went on to stay at Loafers Lodge for a week before setting the fire.
His symptoms documented across the past 25 years include hearing derogatory voices, having hallucinations, and suffering from persecutory delusions such as believing his food had been poisoned, contaminated or interfered with.
Barry-Walsh said that when he was assessing if the man knew setting the blazes was morally wrong, he took into consideration he had previously been convicted of attempted arson in 1996.
Barry-Walsh said at one point, the man said he did not remember this attempted arson, but in a different interview he gave details of what happened.
Barry-Walsh said the man had “probably lied”, regarding the first instance.
The trial continues.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.