A “sadistic and cruel” woman tortured and played sick games with her victims during a horrific drug-fuelled spree.
Over 10 days in June 2020, Charmayne Emily McEwen took part in three horrific incidents, including one where the 21-year-old helped bind and torture a man in a Geelong garage.
She also played a role in the horrific stabbing of a man in his own home and took part in the extortion of two parents who were threatened with a gun and knives metres away from their young children.
For her crimes she was jailed for six years and six months after pleading guilty to 10 charges, including kidnapping, extortion, false imprisonment, intentionally causing injury and armed robbery.
The shocking rampage started on June 1 when she and an accomplice lured their victim to a garage in a Geelong suburb after telling him his partner would be there.
The 34-year-old victim’s relationship had broken down and he believed he would see his estranged partner. Instead, McEwen and her associate were waiting.
The victim was “hogtied”, his head wrapped in duct tape and left on the floor.
For more than an hour the pair kicked and bashed the bound victim and McEwen used pliers to peel back skin on his face and spat on him.
In a sick game they taunted him to stay quiet for two minutes while they violently attacked the helpless victim and would restart the timer every time he made a noise. This “game” was repeated up to 15 times.
“It looks like you've had enough now that you’ve pissed yourself,” McEwen told the man in recordings played to the court.
The man was then shoved into his own car boot and driven to a nearby location where he was dumped and threatened if he tried to escape. The victim eventually managed to free himself and got help from a truck driver.
“The fact you and the co-offender made a game out of tormenting (the victim]), telling him not to make noise for two minutes then hitting him so he would make noise was cruel and sadistic,” Judge Elizabeth Brimer said.
McEwen later bragged to the victim’s estranged girlfriend that she “mentally f**ked” with him and she was the “only one hitting him” and had to be stopped.
Nine days later she and the same accomplice launched another disturbing attack on a man she claimed sexually assaulted a woman.
They set up a drug meet with their second victim – a 30-year-old man – but instead they violently attacked him, stabbing him in the tongue and through his shoe into his foot.
McEwen also stabbed the man in the thigh before her accomplice threatened to cut out his eyes. They left the man in the bathroom and fled.
A day later she and three men armed with knives and a gun extorted a couple at their home, holding them in a room just metres away from three children and demanding cash.
The father was driven to an ATM to get money but was unable to withdraw any. McEwen then forced the mum to transfer her $2000 using the description “Girls weekend away”. The group stole the couple’s cars.
The woman’s shocking crime spree came to an end in August when she tried to flee from police in a stolen car.
Her lawyer told the court that McEwen suffered PTSD after suffering “horrific abuse” at the hands of a former partner, was highly intoxicated by ice and remorseful.
But Judge Brimer found her prospects of rehabilitation were guarded but took into account her guilty plea.
The 22-year-old will be eligible for parole after she spends three years and 11 months behind bars but has already spent 457 days in custody.
