In October 2020, two men were training practically alone in a gym in Rosebery, near Darwin, Australia. One of them was lying on a bench exercising when 33-year-old Shane William Ryan picked up a 20-kilogram weight and walked directly toward him.
Security cameras captured the moment Ryan lunged forward and dropped the enormous plate onto the man’s head and chest, causing him to fall off the bench and start bleeding.
The strangest part happened afterward. Ryan pretended to have injured his ankle, moved away from the victim, and later returned to call an ambulance.
For months, he maintained that it had been an accident. However, when the case reached the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, he ultimately pleaded guilty and accepted that his actions had been deliberate.
The victim suffered a skull fracture, a cut that required five stitches, facial swelling, headaches, and chest pain. He also stated that he was left with anxiety and needed further medical treatment.
Ryan was sentenced to 19 months in prison, with a minimum of 10 months before becoming eligible for parole.
But the detail that most perplexed the judge was something else: there was no apparent motive. The two men had maintained an apparently friendly relationship before the attack, and up to that point, there had been no known conflict between them.
The video answered the question of whether it had really been an accident. What it never managed to answer was why it happened.
Watch the video now: