Less than an hour after he arrived, Mr Rathod was critically injured, having been strangled by Dolheguy in a choke-hold from behind, as she whispered to him, ‘‘It will be OK.’’ She then wrapped the cord of a sex toy around his neck and telephoned police to report she had killed a man. She told an officer, ‘‘It feels so good.’’ But also, ‘‘I don’t want to be a killer.’’ Maulin Rathod On Thursday a Supreme Court jury found Dolheguy, 20, not guilty of murder but guilty of the alternative charge of manslaughter after deliberating across seven days. There was no dispute she killed Mr Rathod, an Indian student who died in hospital. The only issue between prosecutors and defence lawyers was whether she intended to kill.

Her trial heard that as Dolheguy waited for Mr Rathod to arrive, she went online and searched ‘‘I will kill someone tonight I want to commit murder’’ and also arrived at a page that outlined ‘‘10 steps to committing a murder and getting away with it’’. Later she told police she had an urge to kill. ‘‘I knew I was going to kill him if he came over,’’ she said. Jamie Dolheguy But the jury had to wrangle with evidence of Dolheguy’s profound mental health problems, borne from a childhood of appalling abuse and neglect. She was a ward of the state at 10, had 24-hour care in her house in her teens, had a personality disorder and a history of self-harm and suicide attempts.

Last year The Age reported the young woman believed she was a werewolf and once snarled and tried to bite people during a delusion, and was considered by her carers to be dangerous. Her trial heard that by February last year her round-the-clock care from Jesuit Social Services was scaled back. Defence counsel Sharon Lacy told the jury Dolheguy had no functioning family as support and her mental state on July 23 last year was chaotic. Inside her mind ‘‘was a torrent of terrifying thoughts and emotions’’. Dolheguy didn’t intend for Mr Rathod to die, Ms Lacy said, and her words to the police officer on the phone, that it felt ‘‘so good’’ but she didn’t want to be a killer, illustrated her troubled mind. Ms Lacy suggested Dolheguy wanted an intervention, and wanted Mr Rathod to run away or assault her when the young woman suggested they try ‘‘choke play’’. She had always been saved when she previously self-harmed or attempted suicide, her lawyer said.

Dolheguy also told police she was angry at never being believed. Soon after Mr Rathod arrived, he and Dolheguy engaged in sexual activity and agreed for her to choke him while they were on her bed, with her behind him. Later, she told police she ignored his tapping – the signal they agreed upon if he wanted her to stop – and choked him until he became a dead weight. She then choked him with the sex toy cord fearing that he would regain consciousness. In a record of interview, Dolheguy told detectives she thought strangulation would be ‘‘quick and easy’’ when she saw the slender Mr Rathod. Asked what would happen if he had been bigger, she said she would have ‘‘latched’’ onto his neck because she also had vampire fantasies. Prosecutor Patrick Bourke acknowledged Dolheguy’s problems were disastrous for both her and Mr Rathod, but told the jury she intended to kill to satisfy her anger and homicidal urgings.

Loading ‘‘What she did to him, what she did on the computer, what she says about it to him and to the police, she intended to kill Mr Rathod,’’ Mr Bourke said. ‘‘She undertook a series of steps, some preparation and plans and decisions along the way that would enable her to overpower him physically ... she needed that advantage to kill him and that’s what she did.’’ Dolheguy told police the conflicting voices she heard made her head a ‘‘warzone’’, and that there were two sides to her, good and bad. She liked one but the other terrified her. The two sides to Dolheguy were on sight as she sat in the dock. Some days she sat serenely drawing and colouring with pencils. Yet when she wore short sleeves it was impossible not to notice self-harm scars all over her arms.

She did not react on Thursday when the jury of seven women and four men found her not guilty of murder and guilty of manslaughter. (One juror was discharged last week because she was to fly to San Francisco for a family holiday.) Justice Peter Almond remanded Dolheguy in custody for a pre-sentence hearing next year.