One time he told her to dig her own grave, and that he would cut her hands off with garden shears.
At sentencing in the Hamilton District Court recently, Judge Kim Saunders praised Storie-Cole’s bravery in not only attending the hearing but reading her statement to, “the very man that instilled sheer terror”.
The judge then took a shot at Johnstone, who sat in the dock smiling, and gesturing to a supporter at the back of the court during proceedings.
“It’s hard to assess your remorse,” the judge told him.
“With the fact I have seen you today interact with someone at the back of court and to do so in a light-hearted way in a manner that suggests some levity on your part that perhaps minimises how serious your predicament is.”
‘Within five seconds, he pulled the trigger’
Storie-Cole told NZME that she and Johnstone had been best friends since 2018, before they formed a relationship in April 2024.
“We got together, and then he just got insanely bad on drugs,” she said.
“I took him back after he had an affair, when I was pregnant with our son, and that’s when the abuse started.”
A five-page summary of facts details the litany of assaults and threats Johnstone dished out between October 2024 and May 2025.
He pulled out a gas-powered handgun and a machete and threatened to shoot her.
As her pregnancy progressed, he became increasingly jealous and assaulted her with the butt of a gun and repeatedly accused her of cheating on him.
Recalling the day she was shot in the head, Storie-Cole told NZME she didn’t notice what had happened at first.
“I heard the gunshot and I thought maybe he shot the wall, because I knew he had weapons, nothing new with him.”
“I opened the door and turned to let him in, so literally within five seconds … he’d pulled the trigger.”
She went into shock, and just held on to her son the whole time.
“I’m lucky I turned because he got me above my left ear.
“So if that was face on, it would have been my forehead or my eye … and it just hurt for days.”
‘You’ll laugh about it one day’
After the shooting, Johnstone told her he felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders, that he could be a dad again, he felt less angry, and that she “took it like a champ”, and that she would “laugh about it one day”.
“Well,” Judge Saunders told him, “I didn’t see her laugh about it today, Mr Johnstone”, as she jailed him.
As he wouldn’t let her leave the house, the pellet stayed in her head for four days before it was finally pulled out with a pair of tweezers.
At the peak of his paranoia, he held her at gunpoint and would go through the data analytics on her phone to see what she had been up to, she said.
“There was no talking to no one … he smashed my phone … so I had no contact with anyone in the outside world.”
Luke Johnstone, 29, walks into the dock of the Hamilton District Court last week. Photo / Belinda Feek
The weekend she escaped, Johnstone threatened to cut her fingers off with garden shears, before telling her to dig her own grave.
She also endured his kicks to her legs, and punches, and slaps to the face, before poking her in the eyes, as she held her baby.
He also used a baseball bat to smash her phone and TV, before smashing her car.
The day she fled, Johnstone told her to get him $13,000, or he would “take it in body parts”.
He told a third party the same thing, court documents state.
Later that night, he rang her apologising, but then thought he could hear someone else and said he was coming to slit her throat.
She grabbed her kids and ran to the neighbour’s house.
Anastasia Storie-Cole pictured walking into Women’s Refuge the night she fled from her attacker, Luke Johnstone. Photo / Supplied
“Their door was open a crack, and I pretty much just fell through their door, and begged them to get us out of there and they hid us in their bathroom and called police,” she told NZME.
Police helped her pack “anything we could” before they took them to Women’s Refuge, where they stayed for seven months.
But now, even with him behind bars, she feared he would “hunt her down like prey” when he was released.
“I feel I will never be safe with him in or out of jail,” she said in her victim impact statement.
“I’m constantly in a nightmare. I have so many traumatic memories.
“I feel I’m living in a real-life horror movie.”
‘He has genuine shame about his actions’
Counsel Kaleb Whyte said his client wanted to make it “absolutely clear” that he didn’t want to minimise what Storie-Cole went through.
“It would have been terrifying,” he said.
“It was serious, sustained and did culminate in … him firing a pellet into her head, and he has genuine shame and has expressed how deeply disappointed he is in himself.
“That’s a reflection on where he is at now, having spent some time in custody on remand, away from drugs and methamphetamine.”
Johnstone was suffering from a meth addiction both at the time and leading up to the offending, he said.
He said it wasn’t a case where Johnstone was denying what occurred, “but he was so impacted by methamphetamine abuse that he couldn’t recall his behaviour … he just couldn’t comment on it”.
Luke Johnstone. Photo / Belinda Feek
He had family and friends in court, including his grandparents, who had been a big support throughout his life.
However, it was when they weren’t in his life that he would veer off the rails.
“His desire is to never end up in that situation again … and one day seek the forgiveness of the victim and assure her that this will never happen again, but he appreciates the impact, nevertheless.”
Whyte said a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) was not required, as it was likely he wouldn’t get parole at his first hearing and it should be up to the panel to decide when he was eligible.
‘I’m not sure how she lived through that’
After reading through the summary of facts, Judge Saunders said how Storie-Cole “managed to live through all of that, I don’t know, but she did”.
“You brought a loaded gun to her house. She was shot immediately.
“It’s just sheer luck that that injury to her was not life-threatening, but the impact you have heard her speak of today.”
Crown prosecutor James Bridgman pushed for a 60% minimum non-parole period, which she agreed was appropriate.
“The cruel, callous indifference to her and the harm you have caused her in that six months frankly defies belief,” the judge said.
“You were clearly determined to cause as much emotional and physical harm, short of death, as you could.
“Those six months were, without doubt I am sure, the most frightening and dangerous months of her life and your offending has caused such trauma that it’s going to take many, many years for her and the young children to live a life without fear, a life without constantly looking over her shoulder and worrying about the slightest noise.”
After taking an overall starting point of 10 years, the judge agreed to issue discounts totalling 40%, short of the 55% pushed for Whyte.
The discounts included credit for his upbringing that saw him drinking alcohol from age 12, and using meth from 19.
On additional charges of injuring with intent, assault with intent, assault with a weapon, male assaults female, possession of an offensive weapon, threatening to kill, demands with intent to steal, and aggravated burglary, Judge Saunders jailed Johnstone for six years.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.