Man who stabbed girlfriend 216 times jailed for 18 years

WELLINGTON - A New Zealand man who stabbed his former girlfriend 216 times in a frenzied attack at her home was sentenced Tuesday in Christchurch to a minimum of 18 years in prison for murder.

Clayton Weatherston, 33, an economics tutor at Otago University in Dunedin was told, “You are the epitome of evil”, by Gil Elliott, father of the victim Sophie Elliott, 22, before the sentence was handed down.

News reports said Weatherston became the focus of public outrage during his month-long trial in July when he showed no remorse and boasted of his academic achievements while claiming his former student and girlfriend had provoked him into the attack.

During the trial, Sophie’s mother, Lesley Elliott, gave evidence of running upstairs when she heard her daughter cry out and saw Weatherston kneeling over her lifeless body and still stabbing her.

“He was straddled across her legs, and she had blood around her neck,” she told the court. “The whole room to me seemed like it was red.”

The judge gave Weatherston a mandatory life sentence with no parole for 18 years.