Mihael Vrhovsek: Attempted murder accused blames insomnia, testosterone for ‘psycho’ throttling attack

A man who lifted a woman off the ground by her throat and repeatedly choked her unconscious claims he can’t recall much of the brutal attack but remembers her calling him “psycho”. Mihael Vrhovsek testified at his attempted murder trial on Friday, blaming insomnia and testosterone he was taking for the horrific violence he unleashed outside a Rivervale apartment complex on February 26, 2024. The 29-year-old also blamed Asperger’s Syndrome for making nasty remarks to the woman, whose identity can’t be revealed, in the lead-up. In confronting CCTV footage shown in the WA Supreme Court this week, Mr Vrhovsek is seen strangling the woman three times — making her lose consciousness each time — while a man repeatedly tried to stop him. “I can’t believe it’s me, that I’ve done that,” Mr Vrhovsek said of the vision. The accused, who moved from Slovenia to Australia when he was 17, was asked why he texted and called the victim from different mobile phones 234 times in the three days beforehand. “I just come back from Europe. It was the first time I’d seen my siblings — they’d grown up,” he said. “The place hadn’t changed. It had a leaking shower. It just broke me.” He said he felt guilty for living well in WA and just wanted to talk to the woman, so the barrage of messages was “to get her attention”. They included “you’re dead to me”, “you’re a slut” and “I prefer to think of you dead in your apartment for every day your car doesn’t move”. When the woman spotted him in the foyer of the complex, she turned around and called triple-0 while seeking help from a woman who was out walking her dogs. “I couldn’t understand why she was calling police,” the accused said. Defence counsel Luka Margaretic put to his client that he then grabbed her throat. “Yes I did but it didn’t feel like I consciously did it,” he said. “I heard her say ‘you’re a psycho’ ... I wasn’t in control of my body. “I didn’t really know what I was doing.” Prosecutor Jehna Winter said Mr Vrhovsek dragged the woman unconscious towards a bin room at the end of the driveway and fought off the man who was trying to help her. He shouted “I want to kill her”, “I want to finish the job” and “She deserved it”, Ms Winter said. Mr Vrhovsek denied yelling that and choking the woman a third time, saying he “just bear-hugged her around the throat” on that occasion. He also claimed to be “blacked out” when he was “carrying her”. His defence centres on intent and he told Mr Margaretic that killing the woman didn’t cross his mind. “I don’t think I formed any intention, to be honest,” he said. “I just got angry. To give context I struggle to sleep.” The accused said he was prescribed testosterone cream after he began snapping at colleagues and felt unmotivated and suicidal due to sleep deprivation. “It affected me in a way it hadn’t before.” He said he also injected illegally-bought human growth hormone. The trial continues.