A man accused of murdering four people during a shooting spree across Darwin was terrified someone was out to get him before the killings, a court has heard.
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Benjamin Glenn Hoffmann has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder in less than an hour at four locations on June 4, 2019.
The day before the men died, the 47-year-old pulled his car into a service station and gave his mobile phone to cashier Edith Reidy.
"He was scared," she told the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Tuesday.
"Terrified?" defence lawyer Jon Tippett QC asked.
"Yes," Ms Reidy said.
The court was shown CCTV footage recorded about 6pm on June 3 of Hoffmann coming and going from the Puma service station in Coolalinga, on Darwin's outskirts.
In the video, Ms Reidy can be heard telling another customer about Hoffmann after he handed his phone to her.
"A fella just ran in here and said if anything happens, ring the cops," she told a bearded man dressed in a brown shirt.
"F*** this s***. Why did this happen to me?"
The bearded man advised Ms Reidy to call the police and tell them about Hoffmann.
In a statement to police, Ms Reidy said Hoffmann told her he was in trouble and they were after him.
She was unable to say who "they" were.
"'It's not my fault. It's how it's gone down. It's her fault'," the court heard Hoffmann said to Ms Reidy.
When Hoffmann returned, Ms Reidy tried to give Hoffmann back his phone but he didn't want to take it.
"I could see in his face he was terrified," she told police after the killings.
Ms Reidy said she lied to Hoffmann, saying she was shutting the service station
"I wasn't scared of him. I was scared of the people coming for him who were gonna come to me," she said.
About the same time, Hoffmann smoked crystal methamphetamine with his ex-girlfriend, Kelly Collins, at her home in a suburb near the service station.
The third man to die the following day, Michael Sisois, 57, was also with the pair.
Ms Collins said Hoffman smoked "quite a bit, as in three pipes" in about an hour then left.
She also smoked some of the ice and said she felt disoriented afterwards.
"It didn't taste right. It didn't taste nice," she said.
'It was just off."
By 1am, Hoffmann had gone to the emergency department at the Royal Darwin Hospital, where he told nurse Stephanie Grainger he'd been poisoned.
"He wasn't engaging that well. He didn't have good eye contact. He just seemed distracted," she said.
"He was paranoid."
The Crown says Hoffmann used a shotgun to murder four men in less than an hour as he searched for Ms Collins and a man named Alex Deligiannis less than 24 hours later.
Hassan Baydoun, 33, died at the Palms Motel and Nigel Hellings, 75, was fatally shot at an apartment complex.
Mr Sisois died from a gunshot to the head in the car park at The Buff Club and Rob Courtney, 52, was stabbed more than 30 times and shot dead at Darwin Recycling.
Hoffmann told police after he was arrested that he believed he'd been poisoned the night before the killings.
He said it caused him to be "out of his mind" and temporarily insane on June 4.
The trial continues.
Australian Associated Press
