‘Genuinely loved her’: Tyrone Thompson’s letter after the murder of Mackenzie Anderson
A man who stabbed his ex-girlfriend 78 times claimed in a letter that he never intended to hurt her and “lost control”.
A man who stabbed his ex-partner 78 times in her own home has told a court he “genuinely loved her” and claimed he “lost control” on the night she died.
Tyrone Thompson is facing sentencing in the NSW Supreme Court for the horrific murder of 21-year-old Mackenzie Anderson at her Newcastle unit three years ago.
Thompson, 25, for the first time apologised for the appalling crime in a letter to the court on Tuesday, in which he claimed to have “never meant to hurt her that night”.
“I write this letter with remorse, and I know that no words can undo the pain and devastation caused by my actions in 2022, when the life of someone I genuinely loved was tragically ended,” he wrote.
But his letter has been criticised by prosecutors as containing elements of “victim blaming”, as he faces decades behind bars.
It included claims of a physical and “toxic relationship”, claiming his victim had spat at him and called him ugly during their time together.
The court has heard Thompson was bound by an AVO protecting Ms Anderson at the time of her death in Mayfield on March 25, 2022.
He had just weeks earlier been released on parole for domestic violence committed against her during their relationship.
“My memory is unclear of every detail of what happened and that’s something I struggle with constantly,” he wrote.
“What I do know is that I never planned to hurt her that night, the thought had not even crossed my mind.”
The letter also detailed a “struggle over a knife”, which he then used to repeatedly stab the young woman.
“When it cut my hand, something inside me lost control,” Thompson wrote in his letter.
“I have asked myself a thousand times since then how it could have gone so wrong.
“I would give anything, truly anything to take that moment back.
“I get very emotional when I think about how that 30 second period or so of my life changed so many other peoples’ lives after that night.”
Thompson said he “took responsibility for what I did even if I wasn’t in a rational state of mind at the time”.
Crown prosecutor Brendan Queenan on Wednesday said the letter was “an untested document” that came after the sentence hearing had already started.
“There is also some element of victim blaming and that would go towards the element of remorse,” he told the court.
This week Ms Anderson’s friends and family remembered her as a “devoted mother” who “shined” despite the ongoing abuse at Thompson’s hands.
Her mum Tabitha Acret, told the court of how their family had been exposed to the “true evil in this world”.
“Mackenzie did everything she could … her death was no surprise but instead a death in slow motion,” Ms Acret said through tears.
Agreed facts released by the court revealed how Thompson terrorised the young mother in her final hours.
Thompson had ignored his parole conditions designed to protect Ms Anderson within 24 hours of his release, telling her in a call, “he was coming for her and he loved her”.
The two reconnected in the days later and spent much of March 25 together, alongside another friend, at Ms Anderson’s Crebert St unit.
The court has heard Thompson became increasingly erratic throughout the day, including “moving knives” around the kitchen and taking her phone, and was twice asked to leave.
He climbed back into the apartment using a ladder while Ms Anderson slept and then fled with her house keys when she called triple-0.
“My ex-boyfriend’s broken in,” Mackenzie Anderson told the operator.
“I’ve woken up to him in my house. Like, I have an AVO on him.”
Thompson returned soon after and stabbed her to death.
Justice Richard Weinstein told the court he accepted the former couple’s reconnection in the final weeks of Ms Anderson’s life was “consensual”.
He is due to sentence Thompson, who pleaded guilty to murder, on Friday.