A MAN who allegedly bound and gagged a Stockton woman and stabbed her to death was an ice addict, who told police he was using drugs every two or three hours at the time of the murder, a court has heard.
In a rambling, disjointed interview with police after his arrest on September 15, Tyron Jarrad Ham initially denied killing 34-year-old Rebecca Baillie, with whom he had moved in as a boarder in the days before her death.
The 22-year-old said he had taken some "gas", understood to be amphetamines, had consensual sex with her and was making a "gun" to tattoo himself before he decided to go out late in the evening and break into cars, evidence tendered in Newcastle Local Court said.
He was gone about an hour before coming home to find her dead on the lounge of her Dunbar Street home. He said he removed rings from her fingers and other property before fleeing in her car.
Later in the interview, when quizzed about alleged admissions to his mother, Ham admitted to the stabbing.
He allegedly told police "it wasn't nice but it wasn't brutal" and that he "made sure she was dyin' quickly through the neck".
He also said he had not really slept for about three days before the alleged killing, or since, because of his drug-taking.
Ham was committed yesterday to stand trial on a charge of murdering Ms Baillie between September 11 and September 13.
An autopsy report, also tendered to the court, said she was found with 19 wounds to her face, neck and body, including 10 stab wounds.
The stab wounds had severed both carotid arteries in her neck and her jugular vein, the report said. She had died from acute blood loss and bleeding into her airways.
The report also indicated she had been drinking heavily.
Ham's mother, Lorraine Thomas, told police her son had been taking "ice", or crystal methamphetamine, for five years. She said he had become violent towards her since that time.
She said she thought her son believed he was killing a black man who he said had sexually assaulted him.
Ms Baillie's estranged husband Craig, who found her body, said she had rung him late on September 11 or early on September 12 and told him: "Old mate has got a gun. I'm frightened."
The matter was adjourned to the Supreme Court on September 5.