Three years ago, the lives of four families changed forever when Benjamin Hoffmann went on a murderous shooting spree through Darwin.
After two attempts at a trial and several dramatic courtroom outbursts, he has today been sentenced for the horrifying attacks he carried out on the evening of June 4, 2019.
For the murders of Hassan Baydoun, Michael Sisois and Robert Courtney, as well as the manslaughter of Nigel Hellings and a handful of other crimes, Hoffmann will spend the rest of his life in prison, after being sentenced to life with no parole.
This is how the night played out.
Drugs, a motel, and a man named Alex
On parole after being released from prison two months earlier, Benjamin Hoffmann was high on methamphetamine.
It was barely sunset when he forced his way into various rooms at the Palms Motel in Darwin's city centre, calling out for a man named "Alex".
It would later be revealed the "Alex" he was searching for was Alex Deligianis, a man Hoffmann accused of pimping out and assaulting his "girlfriend".
Both Mr Deligianis and the woman refuted Hoffmann's claims.
But while looking for him at the motel, Hoffmann murdered 33-year-old taxi driver Hassan Baydoun, who was in his own room when he died.
Hoffmann fired shots at several rooms at the Palms; another hit a young woman in the legs.
Years later at the Northern Territory Supreme Court, the woman and her partner were forced to recount the moment they begged Hoffmann to spare their lives.
Before police could catch up with him, Hoffmann returned to the white ute he had borrowed from a friend earlier that day and moved on to a set of residential apartments, where he killed 75-year-old Nigel Hellings.
Police later learned the Palms Motel and Gardens Hill Crescent apartments had previously been frequented by Alex Deligianis, but neither Mr Baydoun or Mr Hellings were known to Hoffmann.
Hoffmann then moved on to the Buff Club, a pub just metres from the scene of his second murder.
In the carpark, Hoffmann approached his former colleague Michael Sisois – who he has since accused of "poisoning" him in a series of bizarre courtroom outbursts – before aiming the shotgun at his head and pulling the trigger.
Police were nearby but didn't enter the Buff Club until it was too late.
Hoffmann had already moved on to the Darwin Recycling Centre, just outside of the city centre, where 52-year-old Robert Courtney fought for his life, injuring Hoffmann as he tried desperately to stop the killer.
Mr Courtney was later found dead with more than 60 injuries, including stab and slash wounds.
Hoffmann then drove the white ute to NT Police Headquarters, about 15 minutes from the city centre.
There, he was captured on CCTV covered in blood and carrying a shotgun, attempting to get inside.
Hoffmann has since claimed he was trying to turn himself in, but the front counter was closed, and no one knew he was there until after he'd left.
He made a dramatic triple-0 call as he drove back towards the city, telling Superintendent Lee Morgan he needed "help".
A complicated police mission followed, attempting to stop him from travelling along busy city streets.
At one of the main roads into the city, about an hour after the first shots were fired, Hoffmann was finally arrested.
Pulled over by a calm general duties police officer, a bloodied and battered Hoffmann with a shotgun by his side, stepped out of the white ute.
Tactical police pounced within seconds, tasering the killer before he was bundled into the back of a police car.
It was the end of the worst mass shooting the Northern Territory had seen in decades, described as "an hour of chaos", but just the beginning of a nightmare legal rigmarole.
Three years of denial
Days after Hoffmann's rampage, before his victims could be laid to rest, the killer's series of dramatic courtroom outbursts began.
"I'm very sorry about what's happened," he told the Darwin Local Court on June 7, 2019.
Despite seemingly apologising for the shooting in its immediate aftermath, Hoffmann spent the better part of the next three years denying it was his fault.
"I do need help, I asked for help," he told Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris in that first court appearance.
Pleading not guilty to all charges from the outset, Hoffmann instructed his lawyers he was mentally unstable and went on to tell the court, over several years, his actions were the fault of others.
He claimed someone else gave him a gun and the ammunition used on the day of the shooting and that others should be held liable for their part in the crimes.
Police have never laid charges against anyone other than Hoffmann in relation to the shooting spree.
Hoffmann was supposed to face a nine-week trial in March last year, almost two years after the shooting.
But shortly before it was scheduled to begin, the killer claimed he hadn't had enough time to read the brief of evidence against him and he would be unable to properly instruct his lawyers unless he had more time.
Offers from the judge of a few weeks' grace were denied and Hoffmann's trial, with all 60-plus witnesses ready to go, was put off by six months.
In September 2021, a jury was finally empanelled, and they spent the next seven weeks taking in every detail of the case against Hoffmann.
They listened to the dramatic calls to triple-0, watched horrifying CCTV of a man being shot in the head and heard the traumatic accounts of witnesses who had feared for their lives in the face of a murderer armed with a shotgun.
Then one day, seven weeks in, they were told to go home. The jury's service was no longer needed.
Hoffmann had changed his mind and was ready to admit guilt.
Almost a year since pleading guilty
Except he wasn't.
About a year since entering a guilty plea, Hoffmann has only just been sentenced today.
Justice John Burns has told him the delay was partly his own fault.
He has fired, hired, fired again, and re-hired a series of lawyers in the near year he has spent trying to convince the court his poor mental health should be taken into account when he's sentenced for the shooting.
Immediately after he pleaded guilty, Hoffmann sensationally sacked his high-profile, publicly funded legal team, which included two of Darwin's most well-known barristers, Jon Tippett KC and Peter Maley.
Eventually he was taken on by a junior barrister and her advisor, but he fired them too.
The NT Legal Aid Commission stopped granting Hoffmann funding and, facing the prospect of representing himself through sentencing proceedings, he re-hired junior barrister Dr Patricia Petersen who agreed to take on his case at no cost.
He raised the possibility of "changing" his plea, but ultimately no such application was made.
Outside of court, the prosecution case against Hoffmann seemed clear from the moment he was arrested.
He made admissions on camera, in court and even throughout his trial there were very few facts in dispute.
It was a case which could, and arguably should, have been over long ago.
But the complicated string of stories Hoffmann has stuck by are required to be heard under Australia's system of justice, where all people should be given a fair trial regardless of their crimes.
When Hoffmann returns to prison this afternoon, the families of his victims will finally know just how long he will stay there.
