An occult and conspiracy theory podcaster has pleaded guilty to murdering his girlfriend at her home in the riverside Perth suburb of Bassendean last year.
Tobias Nuttall, 32, was the co-host of the Waking World podcast, which covered “the occult, magick, spirituality, and everything clandestine”.
Nuttall appeared at Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court on Wednesday via video link, sporting a long beard and long hair, where he pleaded guilty to murder.
The court was told a psychiatric report and psychological report were being ordered prior to his sentencing.
Friends described Nuttall’s victim as an animal lover and avid reader, who “delved into psychology and philosophy” and was “head over heels in love” with Nuttall.
She was found at a Reid Street property with stab wounds after the pair had returned from a trip to Sydney.
Shortly after his arrest, Nuttall’s co-host on Waking World, known to listeners as Dale, described him as “eccentric”, but claimed he “certainly wasn’t a monster”.
The pair had worked together on the podcast for about two years before Nuttall’s arrest.
Nuttall’s victim had previously appeared on his show, where she discussed growing up in New Zealand before moving to WA, and her experience working in the sex industry.
However, of Nuttall, Dale told listeners an episode posted shortly after his arrest that “he’s not a conspiracy podcaster”.
“He’s a guy that’s got loads of information about lots of different topics, of which, some are conspiracies … but it’s history, religion, geopolitics, conspiracies, secret societies, loads of stuff,” the host said.
Episodes covered the John F Kennedy assassination, MK Ultra, Zionism and what the pair called the “world’s biggest scam” – COVID-19.
An episode also discussed how the pair had managed to book moon landing conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel as a guest, who has previously appeared on podcaster Joe Rogan’s program.
Nuttall, who lived in the north-eastern Perth suburb of Brigadoon, graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor of philosophy in 2019.
He told podcast listeners in 2023 he had become interested in the occult when he was 13 years old, despite being raised in a non-religious household, spending three days of his school holidays in “sustained meditation”.
“I remember practicing, I guess, what you would call a seance for the first time,” he said, and detailed how he had meditated on a pentagram surrounded by the nature of his hillside suburb.
Nuttall has been remanded through to the Supreme Court of WA on April 13 where a date will be made for his sentencing.
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