Mr Woodhead looked down and then up to the ceiling after the verdict was announced. His family members stayed composed, but soon after wiped away tears. Easton Woodhead arriving at the Supreme Court in October. Credit:Wayne Taylor Mr Woodhead was remanded in custody, and will stay in prison for another fortnight as reports are compiled into his mental impairment. Justice Jane Dixon said there was no practical alternative but for Mr Woodhead to stay in prison for now, as spaces were limited at the Thomas Embling psychiatric hospital. Mr Woodhead lived in a 15th floor apartment on Flinders Street, close to Enterprize park, which was paid for by his mother. He had been smoking cannabis on a daily basis, believed Mr Perry had stolen his motorbike and wanted it back.

He had pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Perry on the grounds of mental impairment. Easton Woodhead killed Wayne 'Mouse' Perry in 2014. Credit:Angela Wylie The Crown case relied on evidence from Forensicare psychiatrist Claire McInerney, who interviewed Mr Woodhead in prison after his arrest. In Dr McInerney's opinion, Mr Woodhead was likely to have been suffering a psychotic episode at the time of the killing, probably paranoid schizophrenia, but knew what he was doing and knew it was wrong. Easton Woodhead is facing up to 25 years in a psychiatric hospital.

"There are psychotic symptoms, but they don't provide a psychiatric explanation for the events that occurred," she said. "I don't see how logically a belief about your father being a werewolf would lead you to assault a completely different person in a completely different context. He attacked Mr Perry after repeatedly and unsuccessfully demanding assistance to get the motorbike started." Crown prosecutor Michele Williams, SC, said while the Crown did not dispute Mr Woodhead was mentally ill at the time of the stabbing, he had killed Mr Perry out of anger and frustration because the homeless man refused to let him take back his motorbike. Ms Williams said Mr Woodhead might have thought his father was a werewolf but he was organised and rational when he killed Mr Perry. The prosecutor was highly critical of psychiatrist Dr Olav Nielssen, called as a defence witness, who claimed Mr Woodhead was in the midst of an acute psychotic episode.

Ms Williams warned the jury to have grave fears about anything Dr Nielssen said in his evidence. "And that is because he started off from a position of bias, a position of assuming mental impairment and working towards it," she said. Dr Nielssen had told the court Dr McInerney wrongly found "an island of sanity amidst a sea of madness". "She [Dr McInerney] acknowledges that he was acutely unwell before and soon afterwards but somehow he's free of symptoms at that time," he said. "It's my view that the symptoms were present throughout."

Dr Nielssen said Mr Woodhead's rantings about werewolves and vampires, the fact he held a knife to his own throat at one stage when claiming not to feel pain, and that he boasted about communicating with the stars were indications of his mentally impaired state. Defence barrister Michael Tovey, QC, said when Mr Woodhead repeatedly stabbed Mr Perry, "there was no psychiatric nurse there methodically recording what psychotic symptoms he was displaying or asking him what he was thinking". "He ... has a fractured recollection of the event, which in fact ultimately may be no more than an impression of fear, of the fact that he was under siege. "The way in which his state of mind at the time can be determined relies not just on looking at the objective rationality or irrationality of his behaviour. "It has to be looked at through the lens of somebody who is acknowledged to be in a state of acute psychosis."