A man accused of murdering four people during a shooting spree across Darwin was terrified someone was out to get him before the killings, a court has heard.
Benjamin Glenn Hoffman has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder in less than an hour at four locations on 4 June 2019, the Guardian reports.
The day before the men died, Hoffman allegedly pulled his car into a service station in Coolalinga and gave his mobile phone to the cashier, Edith Reidy.
“He was scared,” she told the Northern Territory supreme court on Tuesday.
“Terrified?” the defense lawyer Jon Tippett QC asked.
“Yes,” Reidy said.
Hoffmann’s ex-girlfriend Kelly Collins told the court that about the same time, Hoffman had smoked crystal methamphetamine with her at her home in a nearby suburb.
She said the third man to die the following day, Michael Sisois, 57, was also with the pair.
In the days after the rampage, Hoffman allegedly told police he believed Sisois had poisoned him in an attempt to kill him two days earlier.
“I reckon I was spiked. Maybe with a substance or something,” he said in a recording played to the Northern Territory Supreme Court last week.
“I think Sisois did it. That Greek guy. I don’t know if he used tranquilizer or tried to poison me.”
Hassan Baydoun, 33, and Nigel Hellings, 75, and Rob Courtney, 52, were also killed in the spree as Hoffman searched for Collins and a man named Alex Deligiannis less than 24 hours later, the crown says.
The trial continues.
Source: The Guardian, Northern Beaches Review
