Eugene Daniel Baker has admitted the gruesome murder. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Eugene Daniel Baker has admitted the gruesome murder. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The sister of an elderly Petone man who was decapitated by his neighbour has spoken of how the gruesome killing haunts her.
Francis Tyson, 71, was murdered at his Jackson St flat by 42-year-old Eugene Baker on November 30.
Baker had earlier pleaded guilty to the murder. Today in the High Court at Wellington he was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Tyson's sister said it was bad enough to hear that her brother had been stabbed in the chest.
"But you went one further than that - you decapitated him, then paraded his head down the street like a trophy," she said.
"Every time I think about my brother, Francis, I see a headless man."
The killing was fuelled by a belief that Tyson had dobbed Baker in to Housing New Zealand for dealing synthetic drugs, causing HNZ to evict Baker from the apartment complex.
Both men were selling synthetics and in the days leading up the murder had argued about it.
Baker made a number of threats to Tyson's life and warned him: "I'm going to take your head".
The grisly threats came true when he entered Tyson's flat and stabbed him five times in the chest.
Francis Tyson, 71, was murdered at his Jackson St flat.
Tyson was already dead when Baker retrieved a large, serrated bread knife and used it to cut off his head.
He then wrapped the head in a towel, put it in a plastic bag, and tried to calm panicked neighbours, telling them he'd clean up the scene in a few days.
He walked down Jackson St swinging the plastic bag and at one point holding it above his head towards a Mongrel Mob house.
He left the head at an unknown property, but it had been returned to him by the time police showed up that evening.
Tyson's sister spoke in her statement of when she and other family members went to see his body through a glass window.
His body was covered up to the neck, and they could only see part of his head.
"Knowing it was not attached to his body, decapitated, sends chills down my spine. This is my nightmare - a stabbed and headless brother."
Another sister read out her statement in court, saying she tried to text and call Tyson when she heard on the radio of a body being found in Petone.
"The memories of Francis don't go away, they are a constant reminder of what I'm missing."
Defence lawyer Brett Crowley said Baker had fallen into a heavy cycle of substance abuse some time ago.
"His life unravelled and his sense of morality unravelled with it."
Justice Robert Dobson said it would have taken "substantial strength and determination" to remove Tyson's head with a bread knife, and the way Baker paraded it down the street was a "gross indignity".
