IT was November 1, 2021, when an anonymous caller phoned police to say Paul Clarke was posting strange videos of himself on Instagram and was "psychotic, unpredictable and erratic".
Police went to Clarke's house on the Central Coast, but couldn't find him.
The next day he smashed his way into a home at Chittaway Bay and beat 70-year-old grandfather Allen Lambert to death with a baseball bat.
Three weeks later, after his arrest, Clarke killed another inmate, 63-year-old Kevin Byrne at Silverwater Correctional Centre.
Clarke, 31, of Berkeley Vale, had been hearing voices and believed he was in charge of the COVID-19 lockdowns, among other grandiose delusions, and last month was given special verdicts of act proven but not criminally responsible after pleading not guilty to the murders of Mr Lambert and Mr Byrne.
There was no dispute Clarke killed both men, but the special hearing in the NSW Supreme Court was held because both defence and prosecution psychiatric experts agreed Clarke was suffering a mental health impairment at the time of the killings.
After entering the special verdicts, Justice Stephen Rothman AM referred Clarke to the Mental Health Review Tribunal and ordered he remain detained until he no longer poses a risk to the public.
And on Friday, Justice Rothman published his reasons for the verdicts, outlining the "bizarre" way Clarke was acting in the lead-up to killing the two men.
Justice Rothman said records showed Clarke had been hearing several voices in his head "as far back as 2012", including an alter-ego.
"According to the records, the accused had said that he had a good side and a second person inside him called Dilmah," Justice Rothman said.
And in the lead-up to killing the two men, Clarke's behaviour was described as "very bizarre" prompting his mother to try to have him hospitalised.
"The accused believed he was in charge of the COVID lockdowns, was eating tree leaves and worms and purportedly believed that the government had "hacked" his phone," Justice Rothman said.
A forensic psychiatrist found Clarke held several "delusional beliefs" around the time of the killings, including that he was responsible for the safety of the community and that, in his psychotic state of mind, he had decided to "take out" people he identified as paedophiles.
Clarke was diagnosed with having a schizoaffective disorder, bipolar and a substance abuse disorder and at the time of the killings was suffering a "severe psychotic episode with manic features consistent with a relapse of schizoaffective disorder", a forensic psychiatrist found.
A day after police received the call about Clarke's behaviour, he forced his way into Mr Lambert's home in Trigg Road about 8.45pm before seriously assaulting Mr Lambert with a baseball bat.
He fled on foot while Mr Lambert was being taken to hospital where he died a short time later.
Clarke was arrested the next day after returning to his home in Lorraine Avenue, Berkeley Vale.
Police later found a baseball bat and a jacket in a neighbouring garden.
Clarke was refused bail and was on remand at Silverwater Correctional Centre on November 23 when he killed Kevin Byrne, 63.
Mr Byrne was found lying on the floor of his cell about 11.30am and, despite the efforts of correctional officers, was declared dead by responding paramedics.
