ABSTRACT
On 21 January 2003 at 8.30 a.m. Antonie Dixon downed a cocktail of orange juice, cocaine and methamphetamine at a house in Pipiroa on the Hauraki Plains, New Zealand. Dixon’s violent crime spree began later that day when he attacked his girlfriend Renee Gunbie with a hammer, breaking her arm. Then, wielding a samurai sword, he sliced off Gunbie’s right hand before attempting to scalp her, later telling psychiatrist Karl Jansen that ‘God told him to’ (‘God ordered Dixon’, 2005). Dixon also attempted to decapitate a former girlfriend, Simone Butler, mutilating both her hands with the sword as she raised her arms to protect herself. He then stole a car and drove to the car park of a shopping centre where he shot to death James Te Aute with a home-made sub-machine gun. He later picked up a hostage, but fi nally surrendered to police in the early hours of the next day (‘A powder keg’, 2005). Although Dixon pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to these assaults and murder, he was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with a 20-year non-parole period (Leigh, 2007).
