A trans-identified male who, on a drug-fueled rampage, hacked at passersby with an axe in 2017 has been released on parole after serving a portion of his sentence in a women’s prison. Evie Amati, previously known as Karl Amati, was 24 when he walked into a 7-11 in Sydney and indiscriminately assaulted two customers with an axe.
In the early hours of January 7, 2017, Amati entered the Enmore 7-11, where he suddenly bludgeoned Ben Rimmer and Susan Hacker with a 2 kilogram axe he had brought with him. The brutal attack was captured on CCTV footage and shows Rimmer bleeding profusely from the head, and Hacker falling to the ground, after the assault. Once outside the shop, Amati swung at pedestrian Shane Redwood, who dodged the attack by using his backpack as a shield.
Rimmer had begun vomiting blood, as the injuries to his face cause such severe bleeding that he nearly drowned. He sustained a fractured nasal bone, eye socket and cheek bones, and underwent hours of reconstructive surgery. His injuries required the insertion of plates and screws, and he will spend the rest of his life with four titanium plates in his face.
A bone in Hacker’s skull was broken into multiple parts, and she had to wear a supportive cervical collar for months. She continues to experience nerve pain, and has said that the attack also impacted her daughter, who developed a fear of going outside after dark.
Amati would later blame his actions on a variety of personal factors, including: complications from a genital surgery he underwent in Thailand in 2014; a failed Tinder date with a woman; depression; and a mixture of drugs. However, during court proceedings it was revealed that he had purchased the axe two months prior and had been practicing his swing on his furniture.
Approximately one hour before the attack, Amati had made an eerie post to his Facebook account which read: “One day I am going to kill a lot of people… Humans are only able to destroy, to hate, so that is what I shall do.”
The message was similar to one he had sent directly to his female date one hour before the attack, writing: “One day I’m going to kill a lot of people for hating something so innocent.”
In 2018, a New South Wales District Court convicted Amati of wounding with intent to murder, causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder and attempting to wound with intent to murder. He was sentenced to nine years in jail with a non-parole period of four-and-a-half years, after his lawyer argued that his transsexual surgery had caused him immense pain and contributed to his attempt to kill random strangers.
But Amati’s term was increased to a possible maximum of 14 years in 2019 after an appeal found that the original sentence was “so manifestly inadequate that it is an affront to the administration of justice.” Rimmer came forward to challenge the sentence, telling the court, “If I hadn’t turned my head at the last minute, she would have cut my head in half … She went there to kill. It’s only pure luck that I’m alive and she’s not remorseful. She’s intelligent … calculating,” he said, referring to Amati with feminine pronouns.
Amati was reported in Australian press as a “woman,” and feminine pronouns were used to refer to him in court. His lawyer, Charles Waterstreet, had argued that Amati had been “out of her mind” at the time as a result of drugs and prescription medication.
Amati testified that his mental health had declined after he began taking female hormones. However, the jury rejected the claim of Amati’s “mental derangement”. He had claimed to have no recollection of the brutal assault and said he had been hearing voices in his head which told him to “kill and maim” and “start the rise of hell on earth.”
After experiencing what he perceived to be rejection and revulsion from his date only hours before, Amati stated that he “really had one more memory … that voice that had been telling me to kill and maim, and inflict pain on people, and start the rise of hell on earth.”
“I recall everything going quiet and feeling that voice come inside and I remember that smile, the smile that was not mine, a sinister smile that plastered my face that I couldn’t control and then I black(ed) out.”
Sometime between 2018 and 2019, Amati had been involved in fights at the all-female Mary Wade Women’s Correctional Centre where he was being detained. During the appeal against Amati’s short sentence, it was revealed that he and a female inmate had a physical altercation after the inmate told Amati he belonged in a male prison.
One of the reasons provided for this dispute was the fact that Amati had chosen to abstain from taking female hormones and was said to be “de-transitioning.”
Prior to his release, Amati was assessed as having a “low to medium” risk of reoffending by NSW Community Corrections.
Prison gender self-identification laws have become a significant discussion in Australia following a 2022 protest by female inmates in Victoria against a trans-identified male they were being incarcerated with.
While the name of the transferred inmate was not initially released, Reduxx found that the details from the criminal’s background mirrored that of Lisa Jones, a trans-identified male who had been sentenced to 3 years and 3 months in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in 2021. Jones had previous convictions for child sex offenses.
Despite the women’s protest, the practice of placing males in women’s prisons across Australia continues, with different states regulating their own policies.
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