‘Lovestruck psycho’ attacked ex’s new man
Unable to accept a former girlfriend seeing someone new, a ‘‘lovestruck psycho’’ entered her house and attacked her new partner with a hammer.
The man was asleep when Ryan Joseph Wenzlick, 27, committed the ‘‘explosively violent and inexcusable’’ act, causing a lasting brain injury.
Wenzlick, a former farm manager, pleaded guilty to attempted murder and assaulting his ex in Cambridge in July 2020. In the High Court at Hamilton yesterday, he was sentenced to six years and four months in prison.
Wenzlick, who described himself a ‘‘lovestruck psycho’’ in a flurry of text messages to his ex, struck his 22-year-old victim in the head with a hammer at least five times on June 30, court documents say.
Soon after the meth-fuelled attack, about 9.14am, he phoned his boss and said he ‘‘gave the guy a hiding’’.
Wenzlick had been hanging around his ex’s house since the previous afternoon. He’d crept inside overnight, and returned after morning milking, court documents show.
Finding the couple still asleep, he got a hammer from his ute and hit the man’s jaw and head, stopping when his ex woke up and started screaming.
Had she not intervened – getting hit on the arm in the process – Wenzlick could have faced a murder charge, Justice Tracey Walker said.
The victim was asleep and ‘‘utterly unable to respond’’.
Afterwards, he needed surgery and rehabilitation, and was unable to eat textured foods for three months.
‘‘He’s unable to trust anyone and has sleeping issues,’’ Justice Walker said.
Wenzlick’s ‘‘explosively violent and inexcusable act’’ was the culmination of a period of controlling behaviour, Justice Walker said.
Wenzlick hung around the house despite not being welcome, and told his ex he’d been ‘‘on the floor next to you for half the night’’ before the attack, court documents show.
Early on the morning of June 30, he photographed himself with a hammer in the kitchen, and another message said ‘‘I could have killed him several times over last night while you were sleeping and you wouldn’t have even known until you woke up’’.
Wenzlick’s family said they believed the stress of an unhealthy relationship and disappointment at its breakup contributed to his actions, along with factors including the loneliness of the Covid-19 lockdown, and new medications.
Concerned family members tried to get dispensation to join him during lockdown, Justice Walker said.
Wenzlick’s difficult childhood and methamphetamine use created ‘‘a powder keg waiting to explode’’, defence counsel Thomas Sutcliffe said.
‘‘He wishes he could take that day back, that moment back, but he can’t.
‘‘He wasn’t aware that he had caused as much damage as he had. That’s not in any way to minimise his actions . . . fired up on methamphetamine, judging that kind of conduct, consequences are furtherest from the mind in the moment.’’
Wenzlick was one of few people who came before the court where the judge ‘‘can take heart that nothing like this will happen again’’, Sutcliffe said.
His only previous conviction was for car theft in 2014, and he had a boss willing to take him on again when he was released from prison. Wenzlick had also been a model prisoner while in custody.
An inability to accept the end of the relationship seemed to drive Wenzlick’s offending, Crown prosecutor Jacinda Hamilton said.
‘‘Unlike many cases, where there’s an explosion of rage or violence in an impulsive situation, this offending occurred against the background of a number of hours ruminating in and around the house,’’ she said.
‘‘It’s broken up by him leaving the property, going to work before returning, deliberately arming himself, and going into a bedroom where two vulnerable people were sleeping.’’
Court documents show that Wenzlick and his partner were in a volatile relationship for about three years, and both had drug issues.
The relationship ended in March 2020, and contact ended in late July.
Wenzlick wanted to reunite with his partner and her children, telling her in messages that he would ‘‘set an example of what is going to happen to any man that touches the woman I want’’.
While Wenzlick had been a contributing member of society, it seemed that things had gone downhill due to his choice to use a pernicious drug, Hamilton said.
Justice Walker took a starting point of 10 years and six months in prison for Wenzlick. She gave a 40 per cent discount to cover aspects such as his guilty plea, personal factors, and remorse.
‘‘He wishes he could take that day back.’’ Thomas Sutcliffe, defence counsel