The jealous killer Mackenzie couldn’t escape

When police rushed to Mackenzie Anderson’s apartment, they discovered her blood-soaked body on the floor. They found her former boyfriend, Tyrone Thompson, with blood on his hands. They tried to help her. He demanded they attend to him instead.

“I’m bleeding out everywhere,” he said. “Man, can you please help my blood pressure?”

Tyrone Thompson has now pleaded guilty to murdering Mackenzie Anderson.Credit: Instagram

Thompson had served just over four months for assaulting and threatening Anderson. He contacted her as soon as he was released, despite an AVO, to profess his “love”. Less than two weeks after he was released he killed her in a bloody frenzy, stabbing her 78 times with her own knife in her own home.

She’d told him to get out of her house and to stop harassing her mother. He said: “It took as many times to stab her till she f---en stopped. That was the end of it.”

On Tuesday, Thompson, from Newcastle, pleaded guilty to murdering Anderson. The plea came after he maintained his innocence for three years, since her death in March 2022, and on the eve of his trial in the NSW Supreme Court.

Anderson was one of 16 NSW women to die in domestic violence-related homicides over the two years to June 2022.

Tyrone Thompson at court on Tuesday.Credit: Nine

She was not quite 22 years old when she died. According to the agreed facts presented to the court, she’d dated Thompson, 25, on and off since 2019, but the relationship was marred by violence. Thompson was sentenced to a minimum of four months and two weeks in jail for assaulting, intimidating and destroying her property in 2021, and was released less than two weeks before she died.

She was scared when he got out, despite the AVO. She told friends that she feared he would kill her. As soon as he was released, he told her he loved her and was coming for her. He changed his social media profile to a picture of her hand holding his face. He knew about a man she’d been dating, Lachlan, and told a friend, “I miss what Lochie took from me.”

His insistence wore her down. She spent some time with him, although she wanted a male friend around too. On the afternoon of the day he killed her, Thompson texted Lachlan that he was with Anderson. “I’m bigger than you,” he wrote. Lachlan told Anderson’s mother, who contacted her daughter. “She knows he’s here,” Anderson wrote to a friend.

Mackenzie Anderson.Credit: Instagram

At that point, things escalated. Thompson shouted at Anderson that she’d ruined his life. He took her phone from her. He cried and said she didn’t appreciate what he did for her. She began asking him to leave. He began moving knives around in the kitchen. The male friend stayed at her apartment, but Thompson told Anderson that he was not afraid of him.

The two men left, but Thompson broke in again, using a ladder to climb onto her balcony. He used Anderson’s phone to text her mother, Tabitha Acret. “I’m with her,” he wrote. “She wants me to talk to you.” Acret refused, replying that they should not be together. Anderson again told him to leave; he took her keys on the way out.

She called triple zero at 10.39pm. At 10.45pm, she texted a friend that Thompson was breaking in, again. “He came at me with a knife,” she said. “He’s still a f---ing freak.” Anderson texted Thompson’s mother, with whom he was – the parole orders said – supposed to be staying. “He stole my phone and is messaging my mum being creepy and mum’s called the cops.”

Three minutes later, she texted her male friend. “Tyrone’s back.”

That’s when neighbours began to hear yelling. They saw her standing between the blinds and the window, which she was hitting with her fists. “She looked terrified,” the agreed facts said. They heard Thompson goading her to stab him again. They heard him yell, “You stabbed me.” They heard him shout, “Stab me, stab me, stab me.”

‘It took as many times to stab her till she f---en stopped. That was the end of it.’

Tyrone Thompson

Her male friend rushed back after her message. When he arrived, he saw Anderson lying on the floor with Thompson leaning over her, stabbing her repeatedly. He called triple zero and ran. Police arrived at 10.53pm, and saw Thompson sitting cross-legged at the top of communal stairs. Police rushed to check Anderson, as Thompson demanded they assist him.

“I’m bleeding out everywhere,” he said, according to the agreed facts. “Man, can you please help my blood pressure?”

Police told him to be quiet; they were trying to check on Anderson. They found a broken knife handle on her chest and a knife blade underneath her body. Thompson, the facts said, “continued to scream out about and seek assistance for his hand”.

Tabitha Acret, mother of Mackenzie Anderson.Credit: Nine

Acret, Anderson’s mother, told The Daily Telegraph that it was a shame Thompson took so long to plead guilty. “He was running with a self-defence plea,” she said. “Mackenzie had more than 70 stab wounds and more than 10 of them apparently could have been fatal, so I don’t think there was any self-defence.”

Thompson will face a sentencing hearing on April 28.

If you or anyone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 131 114, beyondblue on 1800 512 348, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).