BEFORE his girlfriend went missing and he plunged himself into the spotlight, Sayle Kenneth Newson was an ice addict and former Muay Thai fighter prone to a level of "drug taking aggression" that scared his family.
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And he had a record for supplying and possessing drugs and guns and a history of relationships marred by jealousy and possessiveness.
It was a toxic combination of factors made worse not just by Newson's skill with his hands and feet, but by how much he seemed to relish threatening or inflicting violence.
As a fighter he bragged of having an undefeated record and witnesses described seeing him split a punching bag with a kick.
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But he was also heavily entrenched in a life of crime.
Newson was caught running drugs and guns on the Gold Coast in 2013, police who raided a Burleigh Heads motel room finding pistols, rifles, ammunition, amphetamines, cannabis and $11,000 in cash.
And he was suspected by police of conducting a similar operation in the Hunter around the time of Carly McBride's disappearance.
In late 2014, with Ms McBride still missing, Newson torched a hire car on the Central Coast because the rental place was closed over the Christmas break and he couldn't afford to pay the extra fees.
His ice addiction led to him spending time at more than one residential drug rehabilitation centre, but at the time Ms McBride went missing he was in the midst of a methamphetamine binge and hadn't slept in days.
And, before meeting Ms McBride, he had been in at least one relationship that he admitted to police was ruined by his jealousy and possessiveness. In that case the woman and her family felt they had to relocate from Sydney to a secret location to escape Newson.
Newson seemed to solve most of his problems with violence or threats of violence.
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During his police interviews or in listening devices and telephone intercepts, Newson talks a lot about how much people fear him, how he had to bash someone to get information out of them or how he had wanted to "front-kick" one man and "cave his chest in and jump all over his f---ing head."
"I just wanted to front-kick him," Newson told the police about one man who he spoke to about Ms McBride's disappearance. "I just wanted to front-kick through the front door and just, I wanted to bash him to death. I really want to bash him to death. And I was planning on it. I drove out of this town at 200km/h."
He also told police about being jealous of Ms McBride's former boyfriends.
"Her boyfriends that she's had in the last ten years, and they are evil f---ing things man... they're the sort of guys that I would bash the living f--- out of, drag behind a car and then leave them to die," he said.
But he said he was not going to act on that jealousy and that he believed Ms McBride had been "given to him".
"For me, I believe that it was meant to be, it was just the way Carly was given to me," Newson told police.
But a text message exchange between Newson and Ms McBride provided an insight into what their relationship might have really been like.
It wasn't as Newson had sought to present to police.
That was a facade intended to paint him as the devoted boyfriend who would never hurt the woman he loved. The text message exchange, about Ms McBride catching up with an old friend, ended with this from Newson. "I am violent when in this mood and u have no idea bout this part....."
In the early hours of October 1, 2014, with Ms McBride missing only a few hours, Newson posted a status update on Facebook: "Never again 14 yrs shoulda told me that."
It seemed to suggest that Newson felt he had been wronged and was blaming Ms McBride. The post was later deleted. But it was a brief insight into his mindset around the time Ms McBride disappeared.
The jealousy, possessiveness and rage had returned.
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