EXCLUSIVE
A woman who tried to murder 7-Eleven customers with a 2kg axe while high on drugs and depressed and angry after gender surgery is about to walk from jail.
Evie Amati will be freed on parole on Monday morning after serving eight years for the random axe attacks on strangers at a servo in Sydney’s inner-west in 2017.
Amati was seen on CCTV casually walking into the Enmore service station carrying the axe and hiding an 18cm knife in her back pocket at 2.20am on January 6.
After doing a loop of the shop, she chatted with Ben Rimmer at the checkout before she suddenly slammed the axe down on his skull, almost slicing his head in two.
He later told Daily Mail Australia only a momentary ‘bad vibe’ from Amati caused him to slightly turn his head at the last minute, or the savage blow would have been fatal.
Amati then cut down Sharon Hacker with another axe blow to her head.
As Ms Hacker lay helpless on the ground, Amati savagely swung the axe at her again which would have killed her if she hadn’t narrowly missed her target.
Stepping over Ms Hacker, Amati left the petrol station and moved out onto Stanmore Road where she aimed her axe at a third victim, Shane Redwood.
On January 7, 2017, after leaving her Tinder date, Amati went home to her flat, collected the axe and knife and walked into the 450m to the Enmore 7-Eleven at 2.19am
Having axed Ben Rimmer in the face, Evie Amati brings the 2kg weapon down on Sharon Hacker’s skull, attempting to murder both 7-Eleven customers
After the brutal attacks Amati faked unconsciousness and refused to answer questions in a police interview about 13 hours after the attack repeatedly saying over and over, ‘I respectfully exercise my right to silence
Ben Rimmer will spend the rest of his life with four titanium plates in his face, including an orbital plate which moves and which he can feel every time he touches it
Amati, 24 at the time, blamed post-gender reassignment surgery complications, depression, a failed Tinder date, and a cocktail of drugs for her attacks.
However it was later revealed she’d bought the lethal weapon two months earlier and had practised her swing with it on an old couch.
An hour before the attacks, Amati had posted on social media: ‘One day I am going to kill a lot of people.’
Having binged on MDA, antidepressants, transgender hormones, cannabis and vodka, Amati was fired up by resentment after storming out of a failed Tinder date with a woman.
She changed her Facebook status to ‘…Humans are only able to destroy, to hate, so that is what I shall do.’
She then listened to the dark song Flatline by US metal band Periphery and messaged to an acquaintance: ‘Most people deserve to die, I hate people’.
Amati was convicted of wounding with intent to murder, causing grievous bodily harm with intent to murder and attempting to wound with intent to murder in NSW District Court in 2018.
Since being in jail, Amati had begun the process of ‘de-transitioning’ from female back to male in consultation with Justice Health according to a 2019 affidavit filed in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA)
Evie Amati (pictured) will be freed on parole on Monday morning
In 2016, Amati, her girlfriend, parents and sister flew to Thailand for her to have gender reassignment surgery
Before transitioning to a woman, Evie was Karl Amati, a unionist who drummed in a pub band, Everything I Have is Broken
Prosecutors successfully appealed Amati’s original minimum sentence, almost doubling it to eight years, with the maximum of 14 years expiring in 2031.
While it is not known if Amati, now 32, will emerge from jail as a trans woman or de-transitioned male, she has spent her custody in female correctional centres.
Her axe attack on Mr Rimmer fractured his nasal bone, eye socket and cheek bones, requiring hours of reconstructive surgery and the insertion of plates and screws.
He will spend the rest of his life with four titanium plates in his face, including an orbital plate which moves and which he can feel every time he touches it.
The senior project co-ordinator was attacked as he tried to buy an early morning pie after having beers with his mates. His wife was three months pregnant at the time.
The CCA appeal noted that had the cut been ‘a millimetre or two above it would have resulted in potentially life-threatening … massive bleed to the brain, loss of vision’.
Amati brought the axe down forcefully with two hands onto the head of Ms Hacker who, although somewhat shielded by her dreadlock hairstyle, had the bone at the base of her skull broken into multiple parts.
She wore a cervical collar for months and suffered shooting pain down her arm and hand, chest pain and sleeping issues.
Ms Hacker lost 25kg, suffers continuing nerve pain and her daughter became agoraphobic and terrified of going out after dark.
After Amati’s axe attack Sharon Hacker lost 25kg, suffers continuing nerve pain and her daughter became agoraphobic and fearful of going out after dark
High on drugs and angry at romantic rejection, Amati changed her Facebook status to: ‘Humans are only able to destroy, to hate, so that is what I shall do’ and walked to the 7-Eleven
Amati, who had moved to Sydney from Perth before committing the offences, will have to apply to serve her parole back in Western Australia on strict conditions of not drinking alcohol or taking illicit drugs.
The child of WA trade union bosses, Amati was considered an arrogant and lazy union staffer with a huge sense of entitlement whose connections scored her a job at the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) in Sydney.
She was born a male called Karl Amati in 1992 to parents to Michael Amati and Melanie Booth, formerly WA organiser of the CSIRO Staff Association division of the CPSU, and consultant with federal ministers on issues such as disability services.
Michael was an industrial advocate of the WA State School Teachers Union, and a WA WorkCover agent.
On graduating from Perth’s Shenton College, a progressive coeducational school just 5km from her home, Karl Amati achieved a score of 99.4 and was awarded a WA Government Certificate of Excellence.
Amati was in WA’s top one per cent of high school graduates, and the following year would head east to Sydney, obtaining the job as a member service centre organiser with the CPSU, based at Haymarket near Sydney’s Chinatown.
Born Karl Amati, she had dreams of being female from age five, but could not handle the post operative necessities of gender reassignment
Ben Rimmer remembers bleeding on the ground and screaming in panic at the 7-Eleven proprietor to lock the doors of the shop, for fear of Amati returning to finish them off
Since being in jail, Amati had begun the process of ‘de-transitioning’ from female back to male in consultation with Justice Health according to a 2019 affidavit
A fellow union staffer told the Mail that despite Amati’s glowing references presented during her trial, her workmates remember her as ‘arrogant and lazy’, her lack of sympathy with those who didn’t share her outlook and her frequent sick days.
District Court documents say Amati recounted ‘vivid dreams’ of being female since the age of five or six.
After moving to Sydney aged 17, she began studying US foreign policy at university.
In 2016, Amati, her girlfriend, parents and sister flew to Thailand for her to have gender reassignment surgery.
However, by mid-2016 she separated from her girlfriend and the drummer’s pub band Everything I Have Is Broken split up.
On January 7, 2017, after leaving her Tinder date, Amati went home to her flat, collected the axe and knife and walked into the 450m to the Enmore 7-Eleven at 2.19am.
After trying to kill the three victims, Amati walked up the road and into the front yard of a property, propped the axe up against the wall and lay on the ground.
Two months before the attacks Evie Amati bought the 2kg axe and practised swinging it on an old couch at her Enmore flat 450m from the 7-Eleven
The child of WA trade union bosses, Amati was considered by staffers at her work to bean arrogant and lazy union staffer with a huge sense of entitlement who often took sickies
When police and paramedics found her there, she feigned unconsciousness.
Taken to St Vincent’s Hospital, she ripped the cannula out of her arm and smirked when officers asked her name.
‘I don’t have a name,’ she said, licking her lips. ‘F*** me, f*** me, f*** me.’
In a recorded police interview about 13 hours after the attack, Amati looked composed and refused to answer questions, repeating over and over: ‘I respectfully exercise my right to silence.’
At trial, Amati’s lawyer Charles Waterstreet claimed she was not responsible for the attacks due to mental illness exacerbated by the alcohol, female hormones, antidepressants, cannabis and the MDA tablet she took that night, plus romantic rejection.
The jury found her guilty, but there was general outrage at the short sentence Amati received – four-and-a-half years – before it was successfully appealed.
Ben Rimmer who turned his head right before Amati split his head with her axe said it was ‘pure luck’ he was alive and Amati felt no remorse just self pity she was in jail
While it is not known whether Amati will emerge from jail as a trans woman or de-transitioned male, the now 32-year-old has spent all her time in custody in female correctional centres
Mr Rimmer said of Amati before the appeal: ‘She went there to kill. It’s only pure luck that I’m alive and she’s not remorseful. She’s intelligent … calculating.’
Mr Rimmer remembers bleeding on the ground and screaming in panic at the 7-Eleven proprietor to lock the doors of the shop, for fear of Amati returning to finish them off.
He began vomiting blood because the wounds and fractures in his face inflicted by Amati included a gaping hole in his nose, which sent blood pouring down his throat and risked him drowning in it.
At trial he felt Amati was more sorry for herself being in prison on attempted murder charges than remorseful about trying to kill people.
‘We haven’t heard the last of her,’ he said.
NSW Community Corrections recommended release on parole, on the grounds that Amati ‘has completed their program pathway in custody.
‘[She has] participated in educational and vocational programs, and engaged with professional interventions to address mental health issues, substance abuse and offending behaviour.
‘Amati is assessed at a medium/low risk of reoffending.’
Her parole conditions include not contacting, communicating with, watching, stalking, harassing or intimidating the victims, or entering the Sydney suburbs of Annandale, Petersham, Newtown, Sydenham, and the Sydney CBD.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk