LAUGHING maniacally from behind a cell door somewhere deep inside Goulburn Correctional Centre, aspiring serial killer Kevin Pettiford told a police officer he had slashed a prison guard for a "bit of fun" and she would be seeing him again soon.
"I'm just getting started," Mr Pettiford laughed. "You'll be hearing from me again soon."
And when the police officer told Mr Pettiford she "hopes not" and it's "not good" to injure people, the confessed killer laughed again.
"I like to injure people," he said enthusiastically. "I like to bludgeon people to death."
Video of the interview through the cell door was played to a jury in NSW Supreme Court this week as part of Mr Pettiford's double murder trial.
Mr Pettiford, who calls himself "the hand of death", bludgeoned two homeless men to death in NSW and Queensland before he slashed the throat of another inmate at Cessnock jail because he thought the man had "no one" on the outside and would not be missed.
He used a large rock to attack Andrew Murray while he slept rough in Jack Evans Boat Harbour park at Tweed Heads on November 21, 2019 about two months after he used a rock to kill another homeless man, David Collin, as he slept in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast.
After he was arrested, he made admissions to being responsible and told police "he had always wanted to kill".
Mr Pettiford, who says he is "evil" and "loves killing", told police his philosophy was that he should kill people who were "lesser life" rather than "take it out on a family".
He also wrote letters to police, signed THOD (the hand of death), and said: "You didn't know at the time you arrested me but you stopped me from becoming Australia's most prolific serial killer".
He was refused bail and sent to Cessnock Correctional Centre where in the days after Christmas 2019 he targeted fellow inmate Nathan Mellows because he said he had "no one and nowhere to go when he got out".
CCTV footage from inside the jail shows Mr Pettiford approaching Mr Mellows from behind and using a weapon made from a razor blade to slash his throat.
Mr Mellows survived and Mr Pettiford later made admissions to the attempted murder, saying he targeted his victim's carotid and subclavian arteries because "death would follow very rapidly".
There is no dispute Mr Pettiford struck Mr Murray with the rock and killed him or that he slashed the throat of Mr Mellows, but the issue for the jury to determine is whether or not he was suffering from a mental health impairment at the time of the attacks.
If a defence of mental health impairment is established then the jury will be asked to return two special verdicts of act proven but not criminally responsible.
After slashing the throat of the inmate at Cessnock, Mr Pettiford was transferred to Goulburn Correctional Centre's high risk management unit where he almost immediately began plotting to attack someone else.
And so on March 9, 2020, when a prison officer passed food through a hatch in his cell door, Mr Pettiford slashed him on his arm with a weapon made from a razor blade that he had hidden in his foreskin.
The next day, a police officer interviewed Mr Pettiford about the attack through the cell door and the confessed killer laughed maniacally about hurting and killing people.
He was also overheard telling another inmate he was so excited about slashing the prison guard that he couldn't sleep that night and yelled: "The hand of death is coming for your children".
He was later transferred to Long Bay Hospital.
The trial continues.
