Matthew Lawson, 26, hadn’t slept for a week when he snapped at work and decided he was going to kill his colleague, leaving his demolition site armed with a claw hammer.
“I’m gonna take him down with me, let me take him down with me,” Lawson told his foreman, before jumping in his car, and heading to the City Beach demolition site where Trae Black, 31, was working.
Victim Trae Black.Credit: 9News Perth
In a drug-induced psychosis, Lawson ran at Black and swung the hammer at his head, only missing because his victim dodged.
Black then fled to West Coast Highway and hid in bushes as Lawson circled the area seven times in his car for around 17 minutes.
When Black thought he had left, he emerged from the bushes and began walking along West Coast Highway.
Lawson, however, spotted him and sped at him, chasing him up a bank and hitting him with his car. He then got out the vehicle, laughing, and repeatedly struck Black to the head with a hammer.
Black was badly injured in the incident, with his right leg severed below the knee and his pelvis, skull and jaw fractured.
When police arrested Lawson for assault, he replied: “Nah, murder. Isn’t he dead? If he’s not dead, I’m gonna go back and kill him.”
Read the full article here
