A 21-year-old man who killed a beloved Perth father in such a gruesome manner his own lawyer described it as “the stuff of horror movies” has been jailed for at least 20 years.
The WA Supreme Court was told on Thursday that High Wycombe man Alexander Mark Sutton had fantasised about killing someone since he was a child. In June 2023, he carried out that fantasy by taking the life of 45-year-old Patrik Weiss in his own home.
Patrik Weiss was found dead in his Lockridge home.Credit: Nine News Perth/Supplied
Confronting details of the extreme manner in which Weiss was murdered were revealed in court on Thursday, including the killer’s cannibalistic fantasies.
Why he was killed, however, was explained simply as “senseless” and “gratuitous”, as the court was told Sutton had been extensively psychologically evaluated after his arrest, only for doctors to find no underlying reason for his offending.
One doctor said there was “no evidence of a psycho-illness” and said Sutton did not meet the threshhold for being a psychopath, nor could he be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
Instead, Sutton told psychiatrists he “just wanted to kill” as justification for his actions, claiming it was done out of “curiosity”, because he “wanted to know what it felt like”.
Sutton met Weiss on an online dating platform in December 2022 and the pair spoke intermittently for six months before arranging to meet.
Excerpts from journal entries penned by Sutton in the lead up to Weiss’ murder were read out in court by prosecutor Paul Usher, revealing that Sutton created a fake profile with the sole intention of finding someone to kill.
“If you are reading this book I have been caught or killed … I hear the voices of God ... I have no regret for my actions,” Sutton wrote.
“I started to hear voices earlier this year … I must kill one of those pests in Midland. Then I will kill my dad and sister with the same method.”
Sutton called Weiss “his guinea pig” and said the internet was a “truly dangerous place”.
His journal showed he visited another man on December 22, 2022 intending to kill him, but he “wasn’t able to do it” and the man “escorted” him out of his house. Usher told the court the man had not been able to be identified.
On June 11, 2023, Sutton’s father drove him from High Wycombe to Lockridge to meet Weiss for the first time. It was that day Sutton took Weiss’ life in his bedroom.
Sutton’s lawyer Katherine Dowling told the court the case was “one of the most depraved and monstrous murders that this state has seen”.
“His behaviours were horrifying and profoundly perverse,” she said.
“This must be as close to an example of evil as one could imagine.”
Weiss, a sports massage therapist for the West Coast Eagles, was divorced from his wife at the time of his death. On the day he died, he was due to pick up his two children from school.
When he didn’t arrive the school called his former partner, who visited Weiss’ Lockridge home and found him dead in his bedroom.
In a victim impact statement, she said trauma from the incident had “deeply impacted” her and her children’s emotional and social wellbeing.
“What you have done has not only taken a life but destroyed a family,” she told Sutton.
“It robbed me of a co-parent and someone I once shared a life with. The choices made by you have done irreversible harm.
“This was not just a crime against one person it was a crime that fractured an entire family.”
Weiss’s two young children also addressed Sutton via letters written to the court and read in person by their mother.
“I don’t understand how someone could do something so awful,” Weiss’ daughter wrote.
Those letters were given to Sutton to read a week before his sentencing, the court was told.
While sentencing him on Thursday, Justice Joseph McGrath said Sutton remained at a high risk of reoffending until he had received significant psychiatric treatment.
He said Sutton had killed for “self gratification” and that his “callous” actions had left two children without a father.
Sutton was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 20 years, backdated to when he was first arrested in June 2023.
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