Drug-crazed dairy robber’s memory loss
With blood pouring from his kidney into his abdomen as he tussled with a drug-crazed woman who had stabbed him multiple times and robbed his shop, a dairy owner thought he was going to die.
He now lives in fear every time he opens his dairy, thanks to the actions of Alexa Hodgson.
She cannot remember anything of the attack because she was high on synthetic cannabis and prescription sleeping pills.
Hodgson, 26, was sentenced in the Palmerston North District Court yesterday to four years and two months’ jail for the aggravated robbery of Palmerston North’s West End Store, and an unrelated burglary.
Hodgson put on a beanie and balaclava and armed herself with a knife before cycling to the store at 6.30pm on June 21, 2017.
The female owner was behind the counter, while her husband was in a garage getting items to restock the store, when Hodgson entered.
Hodgson demanded money, waving the knife at the woman, before storming behind the counter and taking $150 from the till.
The woman called out to her husband, telling him to phone the police. He emerged in the front of the store, via a gate, to find Hodgson preparing to cycle away.
He confronted her and the pair got into a struggle, during which her beanie fell off and the balaclava slipped down her face.
Hodgson stabbed the man multiple times, with one slash hitting his kidney, causing bleeding into his abdominal wall.
The man’s wife hit Hodgson on the head with a broom to break up the scuffle, and Hodgson managed to cycle away.
Hodgson wiped away tears when Judge Stephanie Edwards read from the male owner’s victim impact statement.
He wrote that had never suffered injuries like that before, and had to endure emergency surgery and spend a week in hospital.
‘‘He thought he was going to die,’’ the judge said.
Both owners were frightened every time they had to open the store after the robbery, to the point of wanting to sell.
But they had a mortgage, and a son in school, and few ways to make money outside of the business, the judge said.
Hodgson was using synthetic cannabis daily leading up to the robbery, as a coping mechanism after a family tragedy.
She also took prescription sleeping pills on the day of the robbery, meaning she did not remember anything, the judge said.
Although Hodgson did not offer that as an excuse, it did go some way towards explaining why the male owner described her as having a low voice and a ‘‘scary face’’, the judge said.
‘‘We see in this court time and time again – people behaving bizarrely and completely out of character when under the influence of psychoactive substances.’’
Hodgson had detoxed from synthetic drugs while in custody, and had sought transfers to different prisons to get drug treatment.
She could possibly be dead if she had not got off the drug when she did, the judge said.