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The horrifying ordeal continued as Brix grabbed her shoulders and held the knife to her stomach as she tried to push all elevator buttons.
A lifeline emerged as the woman tried to flee through the momentarily open doors, but was pulled back in by her clothes and hair.
Hearing her cry, her husband hung up and called for help.
The next time the lift opened, the woman pushed Brix, who’d returned the knife to her neck, and ran out of the building. There, she found another cleaner and her husband, who also worked as a UNSW cleaner.
A supervisor, security guard and police soon arrived, and the woman was taken to hospital.
Student shown knife by intruder on college terrace
At 6:20am on the same day, an 18-year-old UNSW student left her room across the campus at Phillip Baxter College and walked out to an outdoor terrace.
Brix accosted a woman on an outdoor terrace in the university’s Phillip Baxter College.Credit: UNSW
Brix approached her and asked: “Oi, do you know how to get out of here?”
The woman was frightened as Brix put his arm around her and called her beautiful while she tried to pull away.
“The offender told [redacted] that he had a knife,” the document read.
“He lifted his shirt and showed her ‘something’ tucked into his waist band.”
Brix again placed his arm around the woman before a security guard saw her distress and approached, causing Brix to leave.
Bondi Beach resident’s terrifying break-in while in bed
The frightening spree did not stop there.
When a woman returned from a walk at sunrise, still on March 6, she closed the sliding door to her apartment but did not lock it.
A few hours later, she awoke from a nap to her dog barking intensely.
She looked up to find Brix walking down her hallway, and yelled: “Who is that?”
Brix did not respond. He walked up to her bedroom doorway as the woman screamed out and asked what he was doing there. Brix replied: “It’s fine, I’m just in the wrong apartment”.
Brix approached the screaming woman, who thought she was about to be attacked. But Brix turned away and walked off. As the victim followed to ensure he was leaving, he lifted his shirt to reveal a knife tucked into his shorts and exited the building.
Upon arrest, Brix admits to ‘rampage’
A few hours later, police arrested Brix on Oxford Street, near Westfield Bondi Junction. He said he’d been on a “rampage” and showed them the knife.
He said the cleaner “let [him] in” to the UNSW building, and he followed her into the lift to steal her phone.
A woman awoke to find Brix in her Bondi Beach apartment.Credit: AFR
Regarding the 18-year-old, he said he put his arm around her to “blend in” while leaving the university. Asked if he lifted his shirt to reveal the knife, he said, “I dunno mate, er, I could’ve”.
He said he broke into the Bondi Beach apartment because he wanted to “drink some water and kick back”.
“I wasn’t tryin’ to steal nothing; I was just f----ing trying to get a drink”, he said, adding he didn’t go to a cafe because he wanted to get off the street as he’d just done an armed robbery.
Brix said he’d been “smashed on ice” and was coming down.
Brix was sentenced to four years and six months’ jail with a three-year non-parole period.
The judge requested the registrar consider referring him to drug treatment ran by corrective services.
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