Derek Puffer, the man charged in connection to a double homicide in Braeside in 2013, testified in court on Wednesday that he followed the commands of voices in his head which demanded he stab his mother and stepfather.
On July 4, 2013, the bodies of Donna Lee Powers and her husband, radio personality Billy Powers, were located inside their southwest home. Officers located a naked Derek Puffer at a bus stop several blocks away, where Puffer admitted to killing his mother and stepfather.
On Wednesday, Puffer told the court he got along well Donna Lee and Billy, but voices inside his head, which haunted him for more than twenty years, led him to murder.
40-year-old Puffer said he was hospitalized as a teenager in the early 1990s when he began hearing voices. He described the encounters as a euphoric experience which left him with a warm, glowing sensation throughout his body, stating ‘I thought I was communicating with God’.
Puffer says, as he aged, the voices continued to plague his day-to-day life, and the warm feeling was replaced with something much, more sinister. ‘At first I thought it was religious, but later I started to think brain chip‘, said Puffer on Wednesday.
In 2009, Puffer cut short a trip to New Zealand because of the voices in his head and in June of 2013, the frequency of the voices escalated. According to Puffer, he received instructions 24 hours a day and the voices threatened to kill him.
Puffer says he was in a trance state on the day of the murder and he was acting on the commands of the voices.
"It was constantly repeated to stab them," said Puffer.
"Yes, I stabbed them."
Derek Puffer faces two charges of second degree murder in connection to the deaths of Donna Lee Powers and Bill Powers. On Monday, Puffer entered a not-guilty plea.
