A court has again revoked the freedom of a man who killed his psychiatrist in 1992, because he has repeatedly breached release conditions and embarked on drug binges in the community.
In the SA Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Laura Stein granted an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions to cancel the release on licence of David Tzeegankoff.
He stabbed Dr Nandadevi Chandra to death because he thought she used a voodoo doll to harm him.
After his arrest, he said voices in his head had told him to kill Dr Chandra because she was a vampire.
Tzeegankoff was found not guilty of her murder by reason of mental incompetence and placed on a limiting term in a secure mental health facility.
He was released into the community on licence in the early 2000s but has been returned to custody multiple times due to substance abuse.
Forensic psychiatrist William Brereton provided a report to the court in April 2024 that catalogued a long history of attempts to manage Tzeegankoff in the community under licence, revocations of the licence and returns to detention.
In December 2024, Dr Brereton wrote to the DPP advising that Tzeegankoff's community leave program had been suspended.
It had become apparent that despite alcohol and drug counselling, and attendance at Narcotics Anonymous, Tzeegankoff had "retained little he could put to practical use", the psychiatrist wrote.
Dr Brereton considered Tzeegankoff's prognosis poor and his engagement with rehabilitation as superficial.
"Tzeegankoff is said to have continued to blame others or provide rehearsed, glib responses when questioned about his substance use," Justice Stein wrote in her judgment.
Dr Brereton described Tzeegankoff as having "an extremely pronounced tendency to externalise blame and fundamentally very little motivation to avoid substance use".
"This derives from problems relating to his personality rather than mental illness."
Justice Stein said she was satisfied that Tzeegankoff had contravened the conditions of his release on licence, and accepted Dr Brereton's opinion that he is highly likely to do so again.
