Mert Ney: Michaela Dunn’s killer tells court he was ‘obsessed’ with Christchurch shooting footage

The man who murdered a young woman before going on a terrifying rampage interrupted in court as a prosecutor argued he should be jailed for life.

The man who murdered young woman Michaela Dunn before slashing at strangers with a knife in Sydney’s CBD says he watched footage of the Christchurch massacre more than 20 times in the months before the attack.

“I was just really obsessed with it … I couldn’t keep my eyes off it,” Mert Ney told the NSW Supreme Court at his sentence hearing on Tuesday morning.

But Ney bristled at the suggestion he was motivated by religious extremism as he ran through Sydney’s streets wielding a knife.

He insisted he was only pretending to be a terrorist when he shouted “Allahu Akbar” and did the Islamic State salute so police would shoot him dead.

The 22-year-old was unable to contain his frustration as Crown prosecutor Craig Everson made the case for a life sentence, shouting out about “crims” killing him in jail.

But he was quietened by a sharp warning from Justice Peter Johnson.

Michaela Dunn, 24, from Sydney’s inner west was stabbed to death by Sydney man Mert Ney.

On August 13, 2019, Ney brutally murdered Ms Dunn in a unit on Clarence Street before emerging and stabbing survivor Lin Bo in an attack that brought the CBD to a standstill.

Bystanders trapped him under a milk crate before police arrived.

Ney took the stand on Tuesday after more than 18 months in custody, watched by Ms Dunn’s mother Joanne, sister Emily and more than a dozen supporters with yellow flowers pinned to their lapels.

The grieving mother cried and at one point briefly left the courtroom as an unemotional Ney delivered a deeply disturbing account of what he did to her daughter.

Mert Ney showed no emotion as he relayed graphic details of his slaying of Michaela Dunn. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Ney said he made an appointment with Ms Dunn, who was a sex worker, to “get off the street” despite only having a small amount of cash on him.

As he sat quietly on the couch in the unit, Ms Dunn asked “Are you OK?” two or three times before he pulled out a knife, he said.

Ney prefaced his sentences with warnings – “this next bit is going to be pretty graphic” – as he recalled brutal details of how he stabbed Ms Dunn multiple times and watched her die.

He said he stabbed her at first “just to make her be silent” and then again in the thigh as she fought for life, choking on her own blood.

“It just wouldn’t stop. It kept going on for a few seconds,” he said.

“I knew she was going to die. There were 20 or 30 stab wounds in her neck - she was going to die, there was no doubt about it.”

In the aftermath of her death, he filmed himself posing with Ms Dunn’s body on social media app Snapchat and sent it to a friend.

Mert Ney recorded disturbing videos before and after the brutal killing of Michaela Dunn.

Ney had started to attend a mosque in Blacktown just prior to the attack, the court was told.

His tone remained unchanged as he switched between descriptions of killing Ms Dunn and questions on mundane topics like the blocking function on Snapchat.

But when the Crown prosecutor asked if he had left the mosque because the people there were peaceful, an irritated Ney replied: “Nice spin. Nice spin on the story.”

He also chuckled as he was questioned over sick “jokes” he made to a friend about killing people and having sex with a corpse.

“Everything we talked about was just politically incorrect jokes … every single thing that could cause offence to someone, disgust, shock,” Ney said.

He joked about suicide-by-cop with the same friend.

“I thought ‘that’s a pretty good way to go out’,” he said.

Ney said he wanted police to kill him and was not motivated by religious extremism.

When Ney was arrested, he was carrying a USB with footage of the massacre that killed 51 people at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in March 2019.

He said he viewed it as part of an obsession with watching “bad acts”, partly motivated by his desire to understand his mother’s experiences in war.

He said psychiatrist Richard Furst was wrong to suggest he was potentially motivated to kill Ms Dunn as some sort of retribution for Muslims who died in the Christchurch massacre, or a misguided attempt at martyrdom.

“That is pure speculation,” he said.

He insisted he was not an extremist and was only playing terrorist to ensure police would kill him.

After he killed Ms Dunn, he said he thought: “This is the point of no return, there is no going back. I’ve got to fully commit now.”

“Commit to what?” his lawyer Belinda Rigg asked.

“Getting killed,” he replied.

But as Ney batted away alternative theories, he shed no light on why he did in fact kill Ms Dunn.

“I’m not even sure why I did it,” he confessed.

Flatly, Ney said he now believed his crimes were “just all pointless and selfish”.

Asked how he would feel if somebody murdered his child, he said “life wouldn’t be worth living”, an answer that prompted a nod from Joanne Dunn.

She also mouthed “Yes” as Ney said he thought things would get easier for everyone with time, but “it just gets worse”.

Joanne Dunn (left), mother of murder victim Michaela Dunn. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gaye Gerard

The court heard Ney had anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, and had started to drink alcohol and abuse his prescription medication, becoming addicted in his late teens.

He had consumed Valium on the day he killed Ms Dunn, the court heard.

Mr Everson asked Justice Johnson to impose a life sentence.

Ms Rigg emphasised Ney’s youth, saying he had a “lot of opportunity” to address his problems.

He had been trying to walk a better path and was struggling with his mental health when he murdered Ms Dunn, she said.

Ney will be sentenced on May 14.

Originally published as Mert Ney: Michaela Dunn’s killer tells court he was ‘obsessed’ with Christchurch shooting footage